


Unfortunately, Zeus Was Horny

by marauders_groupie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, F/M, It's not predatory don't worry, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-17 09:48:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4662114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauders_groupie/pseuds/marauders_groupie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke is a Biology major, and Bellamy is a mythology professor at her college. And she's absolutely not attracted to him, not at all. She prefers her partners to be the science-y sort, and not the kind that is able to spew 500 hundred unimportant facts about mythology. But it still happens, because forbidden fruit is the sweetest and there's something about a flustered Bellamy Blake. </p><p>Bellarke college student/teacher AU. Fluff and some smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Clarke doesn’t even know why she’s taking this stupid class. The classroom is stuffy in what seems to be the first wave of summer heat and they’ve all fought about who gets to sit closest to the fan. A fan. In the twenty-first century. Because no one actually invests in classrooms located in additional buildings, classrooms used for hooking up and not holding lectures. In addition to general inability to breathe, the professor is young and flustered, waves his hands all around the place and when he realizes that no one’s listening to him, looks genuinely disappointed.

She’s doing it for the credits. And so is everyone else in the room. He was supposed to know that. She can see Jasper and Monty one row in front of her, meddling with something under the desk and exchanging words like “moonshine”, “distillation” and “good plan” every now and then. Raven, beside Clarke, is dozing off, leaned back in her chair and completely unapologetic of being bored. Her high ponytail is bobbing as her chest rises and falls, whatever she’s dreaming about is probably more interesting than the things Bellamy Blake is talking about, pacing anxiously in front of the blackboard and going on about Roman emperors. Nobody cares.

Miller is sitting behind Clarke and he taps her shoulder with a piece of paper that she unfolds, desperate for some entertainment.

_what a boring asshole_

tell me about it

_we going to tondc tomorrow?_

hell yeah

And there she makes a point of writing down three exclamation marks, bolding them and finally sliding the paper back to Miller. Blake looks in their direction but he sets his eyes on Raven, who is still blissfully unaware of her surroundings, and lets out a tired sigh.

Murphy chuckles somewhere in the back. Clarke envies Raven for being able to fall asleep at command because she can’t. It takes her hours, in a comfortable bed, and much less in a classroom, half-seated with someone talking.

So she reverts her gaze to Blake. He would have been cute if not for two things: a) he’s her professor and it’s not allowed and b) what a huge fucking nerd, seriously. He’s new blood, you can taste those things. In the way he holds himself up, obviously going for the friendly approach instead of the authoritative. Even if college is nothing like high school, it bears some resemblance – especially when it comes to professors fresh out of college themselves. How the hell he managed to land a teaching job here, in a mythology/classics/whatever the hell this was class completely eluded her because Ark College is a college that does science. Not humanities.

“Shit”, Blake mutters and leans against his desk.

Clarke looks up and meets his eyes, tired and run-down from trying to pique the interests of those whose interests couldn’t be piqued with timelines and lifespans of Roman and Greek emperors. Maybe if he’d brought a fuse and let them play with it, but she wasn’t so sure. Still, he was looking at her like he’d been expecting her to say something, or even nudge Raven awake (bad move, seriously bad move – Raven does _not_ like to be woken up), so Clarke only raises her right eyebrow in a sort of deadpan manner, and continues scribbling on the margins of her notebook.

Some time passes and then Blake claps, startling virtually everyone, with a shit-eating grin on his face. Clarke drops her pencil and leans back in her seat, arms crossed at her chest, like she’s daring him to go ahead and make things more interesting.

“I’ve been boring you enough with Roman emperors, right?”

Murphy laughs but no one else is provoked enough to even exhale through their nose.

“You guys probably know that the whole of Greek history could be easily summed up into four words: unfortunately, Zeus was horny.”

Now they were listening. Even Raven woke up from her slumber and leaned forward with her chin in her palm. Wick tries to tease her but she shushes him, raising her arm and shifting her attention to Blake again.

“He is considered to have been a king of the ancient Greek gods, or at least that’s what the historical findings tell us. That’s doesn’t mean he wasn’t a sleaze ball, though. Because he was. He had children with half of Greece and half of Olympus, not caring about who was his sister or his great-granddaughter. With Ananke or Themis, depending on which sources you want to believe, he had the Moirai, the Fates. Old hags who spun, cut and weaved the destinies of Greek people. With Demeter, he had Persephone, and with Persephone, yeah – stop retching, Miller – Zeus didn’t care, we’ve established that he had the tendency not to when he was horny”, this evoked laughter from everyone in the room and Blake looked proud of himself for a second before continuing, “with Persephone he had Zagreus and Melinoe. Many more deities you’ve encountered are actually his children, like Hephaestus and Athena. There are the Graces, as well, and the Muses.”

Everyone seemed to be paying attention now, even Clarke found herself leaning closer to the blackboard, adopting the similar posture to that of Raven. It was like gossiping, really. Zeus was a dirtbag and no human ever passed on the opportunity to get the latest spill on current affairs. Well, not current, but it was still interesting.

The path to twenty year olds’ hearts was through sex, gossip and alcohol. This sort of had it all.

“So, what happened when Hera found out?” Monty piped in.

“Yeah, did she have to be restrained by security Cyclopes?” Raven added, much to everyone’s amusement. Blake looked happy he was finally being asked things. Any sort of things. And this kind of humor was probably right down his alley.

“Kind of”, he answered, settling on top of his desk, “Hera was extremely jealous. She was the goddess of marriage and family so it’s surprising that she had an unfaithful husband. On the other hand, it’s completely possible that Zeus’ infidelity was the main reason why she was a good goddess of marriage, sacrificing herself for the good of her family. As you can imagine, academics like to get drunk and argue about that.”

This made Clarke laugh too, in addition to everyone else. This was different, this was interesting, hearing about mythology like it’s some B-rated soap opera every housewife likes to sit in front of. Zeus and Hera, him being the eternally unfaithful husband and her the selfless wife who still has lunch ready. She’d seen those characters.

“In any case, Hera was pretty frightening when she’d had enough. For example, you know of Artemis and Apollo? She was the goddess of hunt and he the god of poetry, twin siblings. Their mother was Leto and I presume it’s obvious who the father was. Well, Zeus had promised for the hundredth time he wouldn’t cheat on Hera, but he still did. And so, Hera was mad. Livid. She forbade Leto to give birth on terra firma, the mainland, or on an island. But the island of Delos disobeyed Hera and so Leto gave birth there. The legends say that Artemis was the first twin, and after she’d been born she helped her mother give birth to her brother, Apollo. Pretty kickass, right?”

Raven smirked approvingly beside Clarke. The little they knew about mythology, it was mostly about awesome ladies. When it came to history, if you were a woman, you could hope to live to your late twenties after giving birth and dying of plague. History was cruel to women, reducing them to nothing more but baby-making machines. But mythology, mythology always had powerful goddesses. So Raven and Clarke really liked those. Knew about them.

Blake would’ve continued talking, hadn’t it been for the bell which rung, signifying that this class was over. But before anyone got up to pack their things, he begged for a moment of attention.

“Your task for the next class is to choose one mythological figure you’re interested in the most. Write a two-page essay, nothing too much, and then hand it to me. That way I can actually see what you guys are interested in. And ladies”, he nodded towards Clarke and Raven with the utmost respect.

Then he dismissed them and, as Raven and Clarke were striding out with their backpacks slung over their shoulders, dazed from the sudden heat, Miller caught up to them.

“I’ve just asked Clarke, are you down for Tondc tomorrow?”

“Yeah, man. I have Quantum Mechanics tomorrow, I’m gonna need a drink”, she replied, sighing exhaustedly – like only one mention of that class is enough to make her bones ache.

Miller nodded, satisfied, and then fell back again, joining Jasper and Monty.

To be completely honest, Clarke had no idea how she’d made all of these friends. It was clear to her that people usually saw her as a snotty bitch, mostly because her mom was the Assistant Dean of Ark College and possibly because her sense of humor amounted to sarcasm. Still, none of her friends (well, more like a really small gang) seemed to notice that. They just stuck to her, Monty and Jasper after she’d told them not to use hydrogen carbonate in a prank, but rather sodium nitrate, Miller because she covered for him when he snatched something from her mom’s office, and Raven because (and that’s a funny one) they’d been dating the same guy. Finn Collins, the idiot who’d been with Raven since they started dating in high school and then decided to lie to Clarke that he was single and hook up with her more than once. In a college as small as this one. Of course they figured it out, and when Raven told Clarke what was going on, they teamed up and made sure Finn couldn’t drive his car before spending at least a couple of thousand dollars on repairs. They had been best friends since then. And Wick came along with Raven, Engineering major as opposed to her Mechanics, dragging Murphy with him and so they were friends.

Unlikely, very different from one another, friends, but all of them special in their own way – compatible, fortunately. And they all liked science and beer so it was all good. But not better than the moonshine Jasper and Monty synthesized in their lab.

“So, Blake, huh? Who would’ve guessed he had it in him?” Raven smirked.

“Not me. How long’s it been, like nine months of this shit and _now_ he chooses to get all interesting?”

“Well, he was always kind of cute. Like, in a dorky way.”

“Raven”, Clarke turned to face her, “You were literally sleeping for the last eight and a half months whenever we’ve had Ancient European Civilizations.”

Raven blushed and then mumbled something Clarke couldn’t hear, but she probably just swore. In all honesty, Clarke was kind of pissed off because Blake was cute. In a dorky way. But Clarke preferred her partners to be hands-on people, science-y sort. Able to diffuse a bomb and not able to spew like five hundred unimportant facts on top of their mind.

Blake belonged to the latter sort. And of course, he was her professor, so who cared even if he wore those jackets with leather patches on elbows, like he was some elderly British academic, and his ass looked good in slacks when he turned his back. And had insanely curly hair she just wanted to run her fingers through. And smiled like he was a hybrid between a shy nerd and a really hot guy. He was probably both.

But Clarke wasn’t interested. Totally wasn’t. Not even a little bit.

 

* * *

 

Friday had turned out to be a dreadful day and the first thing Clarke did when she came back to the apartment she’d been sharing with Raven for two and a half years now was flop on her bed and let out a muffled cry.

It was just horrible from the very start to this finish at 4 pm. In the morning, she and Raven found out there was something wrong with the pipes so they couldn’t take anything but a freezing cold shower, then she was late to her Human Anatomy class so Kane decided to punish her by making her tell him all the bones in a human’s torso which she couldn’t, provoking him to go on a long lecture about the importance of studying on time if particular students wanted to get into Med School.

After that horror was over with, she runs into Finn on the quad and he’s terribly interested into who she’s dating now, so she makes up a fictional boyfriend and tells him to fuck off, but not before drawing attention from everyone around them – and Bellamy Blake. Blake, who was just walking out of the cafeteria with coffee in his hand when she was in the middle of telling Finn how shitty he was and how that was the worst sex she’d ever had in her life, Blake is laughing into his coffee. Everyone stares at her and Finn, but at least he looks really ashamed and scuttles off.

Later on, a girl approaches Clarke and high-fives her, explaining that she went on a date with Finn and he was the worst guy ever – crying about Clarke and Raven all through the date and then getting terrible when she’d told him to go home. Apparently, he thinks girls go for the mopey ones.

The girl’s name is Harper and Clarke invites her to Tondc that night because any girl who’s had problems with Finn is a friend of hers and Raven’s – and also deserves a really good drink.

After the Finn debacle, Clarke is a teeny tiny bit ashamed but not for stating the facts, that she brushes off with a cool glare, but because Bellamy Blake was there and yeah, she’s not into him but it’s kind of embarrassing to talk about those things in front of your professor. And she might have just loved his reaction of laughing into his coffee, well – more like snorting, and getting his nose smudged with the beverage. When she sees him later, because of course she does as that day is her never-ending nightmare, he still has a smudge on his cheek.

“Clarke Griffin?”

“Yeah, um”, she starts and then averts her gaze before accumulating enough courage to tell him, “You have something right there.”

She motions to her own cheek and he looks confused, but then catches on, cheeks reddening as he shifts his books to his left hand and wipes off the smudge with his right. He looks embarrassed and that makes her smile. There is something in that shyness of his, like he’s not exactly prepared for this – like he’s one of them, and she wonders how old he actually is.

But before she can ask him anything, he lifts his gaze and beams at her.

“Is it better now?”

“Yeah, it is”, she nods and then shifts her weight because she should be getting on but they’re in the hallway and it’s like something has to be said but nothing happens.

“I heard you and Collins today. I really liked the comeback”, he grins.

Her eyebrows raise up in confusion and then he realizes what he’d said and begins stuttering, getting flustered again, like he can’t decide between being cocky and being shy.

“I mean, uh, not like _that_. Obviously not like that. Your, ahem, personal affairs don’t concern me in the slightest but just, eh, I appreciate the sarcasm.”

By the time he rubs his neck with his free hand, obviously uncomfortable with his blabbering mouth, Clarke is too far gone to keep listening. She is so gone because there are two factors at play; the first one him being her professor, and the other one him being a huge and total flustering blabbering dork who gets himself into an uncomfortable situation because he speaks before he thinks. And she fucking loves it so hey, she might as well just throw her hands up in the air and motion for surrender because she is pretty sure that’s what it feels like.

But she manages to compose herself, despite something vaguely reminiscent of butterflies fluttering in her stomach, and she tells him she understands, no problem at all, but she should be getting on. So they say goodbyes, he tells her he’s looking forward to her paper and she smirks, “I bet you do”. Before there’s any flustering, she walks away but her cheeks are so hot they might burn a hole through her hands. She doesn’t dare turn because she knows that if she sees him, she’ll be there in two steps max, pressing him to the wall and saying something horribly nerdy and stupid.

So she keeps walking, the embarrassment once again setting in, and she avoids everyone until she’s opened the doors to her apartment, thrown the keys on the countertop and screamed into her pillow.

Raven appears on her doorway, head gently resting on it, and there’s a carton of cookie-dough flavored Ben and Jerry’s in her hand.

“Shitty day?”

“You have no idea”, Clarke mutters and then raises her head from the bed, beckoning Raven over. The latter settles onto Clarke’s bed, wearing nothing but a bra and a pair of boxer briefs, her hair a mess, and Clarke would have been horribly attracted if not for the fact that Raven is her best friend and she is currently having a problem crushing on Bellamy Blake, of all people.

She takes off her clothes too and they get under the covers, taking turns at burying the spoon deep into the ice cream as they retell each other what had happened during the day.

“Oh yeah, and I invited someone for drinks tonight”, Clarke adds, after Raven is done with laughing her ass off about what Clarke had said to Finn. “Harper. She came over and high-fived me after that because apparently she went on a date with Finn and he kept bitching about us. He _cried_.”

“What a sad little fuck”, Raven says and grabs the ice cream carton from Clarke, digging into it with incredible calm. Like a really happy crane.

“We did get each other out of it.”

“Thank God it was that and not syphilis.”

They sit in Clarke’s bed eating ice cream for another hour, and then she finally tells Raven about Blake. Raven’s first reaction is to stare at Clarke incredulously, and then she bursts out laughing, but it’s a soundless laughter and she claps her hands like a seal.

“It’s not funny!”

Raven takes a couple of minutes to calm down and then Clarke realizes it actually is funny. It’s totally funny because the day before, she was adamantly claiming that Bellamy Blake is totally unattractive. And now she has a crush on him.

“Honestly, Clarke, it’s like you’re so lucky. With your taste, you could’ve done worse than Finn and Lexa. You’re a hot mess.”

“Awww”, Clarke coos, and then presses a peck on Raven’s cheek who makes a show of wiping it, and then they both realize it’s about time they started getting ready for a night out.

“Vodka will do us good after all of this.”

“Make it double.”

 

* * *

 

Tondc is a bar not far away from their college, but still far enough not to get bothered by all of their peers. Occasionally, there appears a stray Ark College student but they never stay for too long after that. There’s not enough cheap liquor and if there is a happy hour taking place, they don’t serve it to anyone who isn’t over 21. Thankfully, all of Clarke’s friends are. And even if Monty and Jasper’s moonshine is the stuff of dreams, one wants vodka and whiskey from time to time, and a comfy atmosphere.

It’s a bar, but it’s also a place with good music, usually live – bands from all over the state, all possible genres but rock prevails. It’s what the owners like, a really nice couple of motorcycle enthusiasts. Octavia and Lincoln. Octavia isn’t much older than Clarke but there is something about her that makes Clarke feel like she is, and Lincoln is about twenty-eight. They are what Raven would call ‘rad’ and after the four of them once got to talking, they realized that they had a lot in common, so the gang gets free peanuts and chips whenever they come around.

And Octavia might have helped Clarke chase away annoying guys once or twice. It’s a friendship.

That’s why everyone is there that Friday night. Miller came first, and he was already seated in a booth near the stage when everyone else arrived. Monty was next, after Raven and Clarke arrived, but Jasper had cancelled because he had plans.

“Jasper has plans? What the fuck?” Raven asks, because Jasper usually doesn’t have plans. He’s simply where Monty is, the two of them being virtually inseparable.

“He met a girl. Don’t ask me anything, but know that I have slept on Miller’s couch last night”, Monty explains, shaking his head in bemusement, but he doesn’t look bothered. Neither does Miller. It’s practically public knowledge that they’re pining after one another, but they’re both cowards. Miller can be the most frightening creature when he feels like it, but when someone starts talking about Monty he’s basically a puddle dripping to the floor. It’s cute.

“I can’t figure out if you slept there because Jasper had a girl over or Miller had a boyfriend over”, Clarke teases, and the two of them blush, so she fist-bumps Raven and smirks at them over her vodka tonic.

Wick, Murphy and Harper join them after a while, and Octavia comes over to say hi to all of them, hugging Clarke. There’s a new band playing and Clarke likes what she hears; they’re doing covers of old stuff, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, things she’d listened with her dad when she was a kid. And when he was alive.

But she chases away all the bad thoughts and returns her attention to the people in her company. They’re all talking to each other, Miller and Monty are trying to whisper but you can’t exactly whisper with rock music playing, Murphy and Harper are obviously flirting, and Raven and Wick are arguing about something that sounds strangely like drawbridges. For reasons that Clarke can’t discern.

So she turns her gaze towards the bar and she sees a familiar presence. Bellamy Blake. What’s he doing in Tondc she doesn’t know but she doesn’t even care. He’s just there, and so is she, but there’s enough people for them not to meet. And for her not to blush, even though that’s hard because he’s wearing a leather jacket and jeans, which somehow looks even hotter than his tweed jacket. He’s leaning on the bar to talk to Lincoln, both of them laughing.

“See something you like?”

Clarke snaps her head to see Raven waggling her eyebrows at her. She’s already tipsy, but Clarke is slower in getting there so she takes a big sip of her drink, enjoying in the way vodka warms up her throat.

“Let’s dance, come on!”

She pulls Raven to the dance floor and the two of them are just horrible, twitching and waving their heads around, supposedly dancing. Everyone from their table is laughing at them so they beckon them over because if they’re making fools out of themselves, the rest of their gang has to as well.

Vodka is finally helping Clarke in forgetting everything that bothers her, but Blake is still in the back of her head, as she hopes he noticed her. She lets out a loud whoop, Raven joins her and then everyone else does it. Before long, Miller’s brought another round of beer over and they all turn totally wild as music gets louder and dirtier.  
  
Boundaries are erased from their minds, courtesy of alcohol, so Raven is grinding into Clarke and they make a big show of dropping down low and coming back up, mouths puckering and hips teasing. It works for Wick because he and Raven disappear somewhere into the dark, with Raven pressing a kiss into Clarke’s temple as she tells her not to wait up, and even Miller and Monty are gone. It’s only Murphy, Harper and Clarke, but Murphy and Harper go dancing, apologizing to Clarke, and she finds herself waving her hand – “It doesn’t matter, go, go, have fun”.

Clarke slowly finds her way to the bar, and positions herself on the stool not too far from where Blake is sitting. He doesn’t sees her as he’s talking to Lincoln again and it looks like they know each other.

Octavia is with Clarke before she’s had enough time to think, and she whoops at Octavia as she serves her a glass filled with clear liquid.

“It’s water, babe. Take a rest and then you can get more vodka.”

“You’re no fun, Octavia”, Clarke pouts but still takes a big gulp of her water. Alcohol makes you thirsty, dancing doesn’t help, and she’s done both. Still, her mind feels like a wonderful, fun place and she gets the worst idea she’s ever had.

“Say, Octavia”, she leans over the counter and the girl smiles up to her, “see that guy over there?”

She nods her head towards Bellamy, trying not to be obvious. He hasn’t spotted her yet, too busy either conversing with Lincoln or looking into his phone.

“Bellamy?”

“Yeah. Is he a regular here?” Clarke asks, confused as to how Octavia learned his name.

“You could say that. What about him?”

“Get him whatever he’s drinking and say it’s on me. Do people do that, anyways?”

Octavia looks up at her with an amused look on her face, eyebrows slightly raised but a smile toying on her lips. She doesn’t say anything, only nods, and Clarke leans back on the bar stool, careful not to end up on the floor. She isn’t dizzy yet but she will be.

She sees Octavia walking over to Blake and handing him a glass of beer, motioning towards Clarke and still sporting a sly smile on her face. Lincoln looks amused too but Clarke doesn’t understand why. She doesn’t care because in that moment Bellamy looks up to her, slightly confused, but he still raises his glass in her direction, so she does the same.

She misses vodka. Octavia pours her one at her request and she downs it in one swift gulp, adamant in her decision of walking over to Blake. Lincoln’s abandoned him, leaving to serve a customer, and so he’s sitting alone, absent-mindedly sipping his beer while checking his phone.

“Hi”, she smiles, suddenly aware of how wobbly she is on her legs and how bad this idea is. But she can’t feel anything, her cheeks are a comfortable warm temperature. She does stupid things when she’s drunk but doesn’t care one bit.

“Clarke, hello.”

“I saw that you were alone, and so I am, so I thought, maybe we could be alone together?”

This makes him laugh and he motions towards the empty seat next to him, which she gladly takes, setting her own glass of water (“Nuh-uh, I’m not carrying you home, Clarke. You’re getting water and then maybe another shot.” Octavia is a dread) on the counter.

The music is loud and so she has to lean over in order to tell him something.

“Did you know that Bellamy means a handsome companion in French?”

He looks at her, sideways, because her lips are still almost touching his cheek and it’s a nice kind of electric running through her body, reaching her fingertips and almost itching to touch him. She doesn’t, but he smiles. It’s not a particularly shy smile, not like the ones he has during the daylight, and so she thinks he must have a couple of beers under his belt too.

His cheek grazes hers as he leans over to her, and whispers. “And Clarke comes from the Latin Clark. Meaning scholar.”

It’s a completely unimportant thing he’s told her, but the way his lips wrap around ‘meaning’ and his tongue twists at the ‘l’ in scholar, it makes it sound like he had just told her he wants to go home with her. Or something better. His voice devours her as he presses through all the l’s, elegant and smooth, and she grabs his hand in a moment of recklessness.

He moves away from her cheek and she fights hard not to take the hand she’s holding in a firm grip and lead it higher on her thigh, under her skirt, see where that takes her. But it’s still on his knee and she feels so much suddenly, like her throat will burst from the longing, like she’ll die right now if he doesn’t kiss her.

But he doesn’t. He just looks at her, something inexplicable in his gaze, and moves away, to a safe distance. It’s too much, she knows, and it’s forbidden but that makes it so much sweeter. Then her rational part of brain kicks in and tells her to move away too, steers the discussion clear of anything that might make them regret something.

“I’m doing my paper on Persephone”, she tells him, taking a big gulp of water to calm herself. It’s like something switches inside him because he returns to composed Blake, polite one. Not the one who enjoyed her stupid pick-up line.

“Oh? How come?”

“She’s awesome. Goddess of spring and yet she chooses to become the queen of the Underworld. All that beauty on the Earth and she still wants more”, Clarke explains.

It’s funny, the two of them leading this conversation like nothing’s happened. It shouldn’t happen. It’s good that he moved.

He looks genuinely interested in what she’s saying, especially now that she has suddenly sobered up and is able to compose intelligible sentences.

“So you don’t think Hades kidnapped her?” Blake asks, leaning on his elbow on the counter.

“No. I think she wanted to leave. Earth is fine and all, but when you’ve got a boring mom… Hell, who wouldn’t leave for a tall dark and mysterious stranger?”

They share a laugh and he keeps nodding, complimenting her on her choice of topic, and so they talk. She finally learns how old he is, 27, she does the math in her head and it’s only six years difference. He tells her that he’s always loved mythology so this class is a real pleasure, except he didn’t know how to approach it until he said the Zeus thing. She confirms that they all loved that and that he’s going in the right direction.

Then Octavia comes along, refills her water and his beer.

“So, are you a regular here or? Because I haven’t seen you here before”, Clarke finally asks.

“No, I moved here from New York”, and then she can hear it in his accent, “Octavia is my sister. I thought she’d told you that?”

And then Clarke is laughing because that explains it all, the amused look Octavia flashes her when Clarke is buying drinks for her brother, and it’s all a little bit messy but she’s having fun. It feels comfortable, just sitting there and talking to him. Much easier than when she had wanted to have sex with him. Now that she knows she can’t, they can be friends. Or something.

“What about you, Clarke? Any relation to Abby Griffin?”

“Mom”, she says, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I don’t go shouting it.”

Bellamy suddenly recoils and she can see the thought forming in his eyes.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell her about us sitting in a bar and talking. My mom and me, we don’t talk.”

It’s true. They don’t. Sure, Abby hugs her when they see each other and they have a dinner at least once a month, but that’s it. They’ve become strangers since she cheated on Clarke’s dad and he killed himself. It’s something Clarke doesn’t like to think about because she both knows and doesn’t know it’s not her mother’s fault. You don’t go killing yourself when you have a fifteen year old daughter, despite the shit you’re having in your marriage. But it’s too much so Clarke keeps it locked up in a distant part of her mind.

And even if Bellamy is looking at her, obviously waiting for an explanation, she doesn’t give him one. She keeps her mouth shut so he leans over and covers her hand with his, a sympathetic look on his face.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. That’s nice of you”, she says and she means it.

He changes the subject and they keep talking until it’s almost dawn and half the crowd is gone. There’s maybe twenty people, including the two of them and Lincoln and Octavia, so they all huddle up against their part of bar and talk. Lincoln and Octavia are planning to go on a trip through America in July, Bellamy promises he’ll take care of the bar, and Clarke vaguely hints at going to Europe so Bellamy goes “full nerd” (in Octavia’s words) listing all the things Clarke just _has_ to see, and he gesticulates and flails his arms around so much that he knocks down a glass, and Octavia makes him clean up.

It’s fun, the four of them, when it’s closing time and Octavia is slumping on Lincoln’s shoulder. Clarke sticks around because she feels really good, really comfortable, like they are her friends, not the family of her professor. He doesn’t feel like it, and maybe she just digs into the revelry because she knows that on Monday, she’s going to be greeting him with “Professor” and they probably won’t ever talk like this again, so she tries to get her money’s worth.

When they’ve cleaned the place up, Clarke helps despite Octavia’s protests, Bellamy kisses Octavia’s temple as she’s already asleep in Lincoln’s arms and they part ways, Lincoln and Octavia going up the stairs to their apartment, and Bellamy and she standing on the pavement, the sky a purple shade of dawn.

“I’ll walk you home”, Bellamy offers and she politely thanks him. She knows there’s not going to be kisses on the doorstep but she still likes talking to him, and that’s exactly what they do. It’s a chilly morning so she’s wrapped herself up in his jacket, and he looks really happy whenever he looks at her.

“So, what are your plans after college?”

“Med school, probably”, she shrugs. The jacket drops from her shoulders and he’s quick to fix it. She knows she’s going to go to med school but it’s lost the appeal. She’d much rather just do something that needs her to use her creativity, something that involves drawing and having fun. Sure, she likes medicine well enough, she wants to help people, but it doesn’t feel like her heart is in its place when she thinks about it.

When she draws, though, that’s when she’s at her happiest.

“You don’t sound overjoyed”, he notices.

“Yeah. I don’t. I’m not. I’m good at it”, she assures him but she needn’t – he knows that already, nodding, “But I’d rather do something art-related. The only thing is, art doesn’t bring food to the table.”

And that’s the stem of her problems. Follow your heart and go with art, or follow the trail of breadcrumbs and go with medicine? It’s something that’s been bothering her for a long time. Her major is Biology, but her minor is Art and Ark has horribly limited syllabus in that department. Still, she’s having a great time whenever she has that sort of classes, having more fun than in biology or chemistry. She loves beakers, but she loves paintbrushes too.

“Uh”, he rubs his neck with his free hand, gaze fixed on the floor, “I can’t help you there. I mean, I’m an ancient history professor. That’s like the worst thing ever.”

“But you love it”, she adds, looking up at him hopefully, and he returns the look.

“But I love it, yes.”

“It all amounts to that, right? If you love something or you don’t. Because, I’m good at medicine, I think I’d make a good doctor. But I would never enjoy it. Not as much as I enjoy drawing. And that’s it, if you’re doing what you love, you’re going to make it. If you don’t, well, I might finish med school but I’d be such a mediocre, dispassionate doctor. So what’s the point?”

The sudden realization makes her stop in the middle of the road and she stares ahead, puzzle pieces finally clicking together. It’s like she’s known this all along. And then a laughter ripples her throat and she’s throwing her head back, throat to the sky, feeling wild, feeling free, feeling like she’s figured it all out.

When she stops and turns back, Bellamy Blake is looking at her like she’s the best thing he’s ever seen, so she takes his hand and pecks his cheek. It’s body electric but a fuse in her is blowing for an entirely different reason.

“Thanks for everything.”

He’s still staring at her when she skips off to her dorm. And as she’s taking her clothes off in her bedroom, shaken by the sudden realization of what she has to do, Bellamy Blake is still standing in the middle of the street, laughing to himself because Clarke Griffin is so odd and strange and wonderful.

 

* * *

 

On Saturday, Clarke wakes up with a sudden peace in her heart and a painful throbbing in her head. She and Raven spend the morning nursing their hangovers, the afternoon talking about what had happened, and the evening looking for colleges specialized in art. They settle on College of Arts and Sciences in Washington, and Raven looks both excited and broken-hearted.

“We’ll Skype. And we’ll see each other on weekends, Washington isn’t that far away”, they come to a compromise and then Raven hugs Clarke so hard she thinks her ribs might crack, but it’s a good kind of hurt because she _has_ to do this and Raven is here for her.

On Sunday, Clarke has dinner with Abby and tells her what she plans to do. Abby protests, like she always does, that’s her way of caring. Clarke knows her mother loves her, but she doesn’t know what Clarke feels like she needs to do.

“You’re going to ruin your life.”

“Mom”, Clarke starts patiently, “you can either support me or not. I’m going to do it either way. But I think you’ll be happier if you support me because I know you love me, and I love you. Let’s fix this.”

They part in tears and Clarke realizes she is so happy that her heart just might burst.

On Monday, she spends the day researching for her paper on Persephone and she finds so much sources giving credibility to her thesis that Persephone left on her own, so she’s jumping up and down in her and Raven’s apartment and Raven shakes her head like she can’t believe what she’s seeing.

Her _professor_ is thrilled with her paper. She gets an A.

Everything is so different. And Clarke’s lips still remember the feel of Bellamy Blake’s cheek and she knows he helped her come to this decision. He didn’t say anything but he gave her his jacket and he walked with her. He told her he loved what he did and she knew how miserable that must’ve made him feel, seeing all those students taking it for extra credits and not because they were actually interested.

She might be in love with Bellamy Blake, but she is so in love with herself right now, dancing with Raven to crappy mid-2000s pop songs, singing on top of her lungs and knowing that she’s finally chosen the right thing. If surrender was too many vodka tonics, victory was fireworks on Fourth of July.

May passes in getting drunk with her friends, doing her best to finish this year with top grades and making it into the College of Arts and Sciences. In June she receives a reply, an official telling her that they would be very glad to accept her – it’s no problem that her major so far was Biology. Raven cries, and everyone hugs. She spends the night on the terrace of Miller’s apartment, with everyone around her sleeping, and staring at the stars.

They still went to Tondc in both May and June, she still talks to Octavia and Bellamy – he is Bellamy when he is in his jeans, but he’s professor Blake when in that tweed jacket of his, and they congratulate her on transferring to another college, but she sees something painful in Bellamy’s eyes and she finds his hand under the table, squeezes it hard and makes a silent promise.

He still walks her back to her dorm after they’ve stayed in Tondc until closing and they are still friends. They talk about the world, the politics, art and mythology. Bellamy tells her how his and Octavia’s mother died when he was 16 and he worked three jobs just to get her out of foster care. College was tough, but they allowed him to live off-campus and life went on.

When he’d told her that, they were sitting on the curb near the college gates. The streets were empty and the sky was slowly turning blue. He didn’t sound like he was pitying himself, he told Clarke everything because she wanted to know. She fell in deeper after that, and she knew there was no way out now.

During the week, he was perfectly polite to her. Friendly, nice, and he pretended not to see Raven smirking, nor everyone else chuckling when she stopped to chat with him. There wasn’t anything to hide, not exactly. Nothing had happened. He was just being perfectly civil, and so was she. The fact that every sight of him made her want to hug him and fuck him, that was a whole different story.

On June 15th, she passed with flying colors – actually, top notch colors. The only grade she yet had to receive was the Ancient European Civilizations one. With the way she wrote her papers, putting extra effort in them and marveling in every note he made in red ink, she didn’t think it would be anything other than an A.

So when Blake stops her on the hallway in front of his office, beckons her to the side and tells her, with a huge grin on his face, that he’s just filed the paperwork and she got an A in his class, she can’t help but to beam at him.

It’s fucking hot, stuffy and tiring, as it always is in that particular building, and she can feel her resolve cracking. There must be something of it showing in her eyes because his cheeks are reddening as he shifts his weight and his books, but her cheeks are red for an entirely different reason.

It’s a fucking menace, seeing him on the hallway, carrying all of those books in his toned arms, because now she can see that they are toned. His shirt sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, hugging his biceps, and the heavy weight in his hands makes the veins he has on his arms and hands pop. The loosened tie and rumpled collar do hellish things to her and right then she can imagine not only running her fingers through his hair, but using them to push his head down when he’s nestled between her thighs.

A drop of sweat is trickling down his temple as he looks at her, breathless. She feels the hunger again, buried for so long and so _wanting_. The way his shirt sticks to his body because of the heat might kill her, but if she dies, she doesn’t want to die not knowing how his lips taste.

So she leans closer to him, head leaned on the wall, lets out an exasperated sigh, and he cocks his head in interest. It only takes a second for her to lick her lips, so thirsty, so thirsty and so wanting of whatever he has to offer, and his eyes to darken.

And then he’s dropping the books and she’s grabbing his shirt, pressing him into the wall and smashing her lips onto his. He tastes like coffee and chocolate, but his lips feel like literal heaven, parted slightly and responding to her own. His fingers sneak around her waist, pulling her closer towards him, and she is so far gone – there is nothing about Clarke Griffin except the gravitational pull towards Bellamy Blake. She is reduced to his lips exploring hers, tongues fighting a battle that is so lost and so won, and her hands slide to wherever she can hold onto because she wants it _all_.

There are bodies and there is heat, twining in her hair and sneaking into his eyes as he looks under his eyelashes at her, marveling, craving, everything she feels is reflected in him. They plunge into this with reckless abandon, slamming each other into the walls of the empty hallway, kicking the books aside, lips parting and reconciling, him dragging his fingers along her spine as she lets out a moan – this is by far the least erotic thing, but it’s doing wonders for her because it’s Bellamy Blake that’s doing it, curly hair and freckles she’ll count because now she can, and strong arms pulling her closer.

And then she moves away, takes half a step back and admires how dazed he looks, crazy with craving, and she knows she looks the same. There’s too much clothes on them and she pushes him back, frenzied fingers unbuttoning his shirt as he tries to protest but can’t. It’s only when she’s reached his belt buckle that he grabs her wrists.

“What are you doing?”

She wants to laugh, God, how inadequate this defense is.

“I don’t know about Zeus”, she presses a kiss into his neck and feels his muscles spasming, “but I’m feeling really horny right now.”

He laughs but he doesn’t stop her, his hands return to his sides in surrender, as she works his belt and finally unclasps it. And then, only then he reacts, eyes so dark she can’t see his pupils and his mouth forming a smile, and he reaches down her back, feeling everything and allowing her to dissolve under his hands, finally lifting her up. It’s muscle memory when she wraps her legs around his waist, hands pressed to his neck.

They make it to his office, shutting the doors even though there’s no one to see them, and he sweeps everything from his desk away. Figurines fall to the floor, breaking, and he smiles because there is destruction and then there is creation, and she can’t think of anything this world might create that would be more beautiful than Bellamy Blake, shirtless, stepping out of his pants and taking all of the time in the world to unbutton her shirt, kiss the trail from her neck, over her stomach, to where her pants are too much for her to handle. And then he teases, and she wants to tell him how fucking disgusting he is because he can’t be dragging his finger under the waistband of her underwear, with a cocky smile on his face, and expect her not to go fucking mad.

“I will kill you”, she whispers into his ear and then drags him back on top of her, back uncomfortable against his deep mahogany desk. She doesn’t care. The only thing that’ll kill her is if he doesn’t get on with it.

But he presses his lips to her jaw, then trails down her neck and sucks at her collarbone, works up and then works down, fingers unclasping her bra buckle, and she sheds it like the snakes of Medusa shed their skin, it no longer serves her, but the look in his eyes is how Cleopatra must have looked at the Library of Alexandria burning, knowing there is nothing for her to do, but feeling the beauty in the furor of the fire. His eyes are everything in the world. And then his lips, kissing her nipples, enveloping them in his mouth and she gives in completely.

There is nothing she can do except look at Bellamy, he is Bellamy now, how could he be anything else, finally pulling her underwear down with a teasing tug, then over her knees, down her ankles. He throws them away like she won’t be needing them anymore and in a sense, that’s right. In that moment, she doesn’t need anything, won’t need anything ever again.

His lips return to her mouth and then sneak away, leaving her mouth opened in a small ‘o’, head raised to meet his but now abandoned, abandoned, that sounds so lonely, but she returns her eyes to him and he’s smiling. It’s not sly, it’s not cocky, it’s not anything except wonderful and pure and happy and that itself might be enough to take her over the edge.

But he comes down to his knees between her parted legs, and she feels like she’s an empress and he’s the one doing everything he can to be in her good graces, but before she can tell him that, he has his hands on her hips, steadying her, and his lips pressed to the inside of her thighs, dragging them over her skin and teasing, just teasing as she groans and begs him to get on with it.

When she’s about to scream because this is horrible and she’s waited for too long, his lips find stillness on her clit and she pauses, like that moment on a rollercoaster when you’ve reached the place of stillness but you know you are _so_ going down in a second.

“You’re gonna enjoy this, Princess.”

And before she can come up with something to retort, his tongue starts dancing around her clit, sucking on it, hitting the sweet spot that makes her grab his head and hold on for her dear life because this is it, this is the rollercoaster, this the ten thousand volts running through her skin, this is how bad she’s wanted it. When he presses his tongue inside her, she feels his stubble, scratching and hurting and healing, and there’s nothing in her that doesn’t want to let go. The want in the lower of her belly builds up as he returns his mouth to kiss every part of her thighs, teasing her, and then returning to her clit where he knows she wants him – one move is enough to send her over the edge, the sensation of his hands on her hips, his mouth between her legs and his head in her fingers, everything, so much, it adds up and ends in her toes curling, spine arching and her throat to where she’s now seeing the stars.

It’s everything. The sight of Bellamy Blake, brushing his lips against her stomach and looking at her through his eyelashes, shy and terrible in the same moment, it’s everything. And so she pulls him back up, wraps her legs around his waist again, and kisses him, tasting herself on his mouth and finding nothing to be more exhilarating than that.

The world gains colors again as he looks at her, waiting for approval, and she nods, laughing, there’s nothing in the world she’d more gladly give her consent to than him being inside of her. He was teasing her, so cruel, so merciless, but now there’s that look again, like it’s only moments before utter destruction and all he wants to do is take her in, and she lifts her back, the two of them finding perfect alignment, perfectly joined.

And then it’s passion and desire and desperation because it was all a child’s play but they are together now and Clarke feels how fucking good this is. No one else she’d rather be with than Bellamy Blake in his office, unquenched thirst and months of slow-burning for each other. This had done them well, she thinks as she grabs his arms and then turns them, his back hitting the desk and her elbows coming to lean by his head.

It’s thrusting and it’s “oh God, more” but before all of that, it’s the feeling of having finally achieved this. The feeling of being one, and it usually sounds so stupid when Clarke hears it in the movies but now she understands. Because there is nothing better than Bellamy inside of her, Bellamy under her and Bellamy all over her.

It doesn’t take him long and she revels in every second, his nose scrunching and his eyes squinting, lips parting to let out a moan. Every muscle in his body goes tense and she can feel it. He getting off is getting her off, and she smiles what she imagines must look wickedly as she rides it out and he looks at her, his hands on her hips, admiring, wondering, enjoying.

Right after they are done, the thirst quenched – but only just, she’s lying on top of him and he’s beaming at her, that grin that she called shit-eating but now knows it as the best there is in the world. The heat is making them slower, dragging it out, and he traces the invisible pattern on her right shoulder as she looks at him, leaned on his chest.

“I called you a princess when I should have called you a queen”, he says and looks at her, his fingers coming to a halt on her shoulder.

“I called you Blake when I should have called you Bellamy”, she smiles, tasting the word in her mouth, dragging it out, Bell-amy. “Bellamy, Bellamy, Bellamy.”

And then they are laughing, both tired, and both happy. His hands are resting on her back, pressing her closer, and she couldn’t imagine anything better. She kisses him again and he kisses her back, that in itself the biggest miracle she could have hoped for.

“I’m not your professor anymore.”

“No, you’re not, Bell-a-my”, she likes the way it sounds, and that testing of hers makes him laugh, his nose scrunching just a little. This close to him, she can count the freckles. Kiss every single one of them.

“Well then, would you go out with me, Clarke?”

She turns to look at him from where she was distracted by the fact that his freckles went down his neck, appearing on his chest. These she’d kiss even more gladly.

But he’s so ridiculous, he’s actually asking her to go out with him when she’s on top of him and totally dead, not a single bone in her body protesting the utmost desire of her heart. They’ve all given up. Clarke wants what she wants.

“Yeah, yeah I would”, she says, laughing, and then kisses him again. Now that she can.

 

* * *

 

 It’s Friday and the place is Tondc. Clarke tells Raven she’ll be late so her best friend leaves with the rest of the gang, wondering what Clarke is not telling her. But the blonde has a smirk on her face so Raven just leaves, rolling her eyes.

Five minutes later, Bellamy is at the door and he has a bouquet of roses in his hand. Thankfully, he doesn’t have a suit on, only a light purple shirt, and it takes all of her self-control not to rip it off and just ditch the plans for the rest of the night. Because a naked Bellamy Blake is always a better plan than anything else.

But she exercises self-control and gets into his car, holds her hand on his knee all through the ride and then checks her makeup in the rearview mirror. She’s nervous. How does one go about doing this? With Finn, it was too short and he was just there so everyone guessed. With Lexa, there was PDA in abundance because she was so jealous and wanted to show everyone that Clarke was hers, so it’d been pretty obvious.

But with Bellamy – well, with him, she just wants to shout it from the rooftops. Apparently, that might land her in jail, so no.

They walk into Tondc (“We kill like ten birds with one stone this way”, he’s told her because Octavia and Lincoln need to know too), holding hands. Nobody notices them for a while, even though it’s not crowded, and then Raven turns around and lets out a scream. That prompts everyone to look at them and then it’s all cheers and claps and whoops. Raven comes to hug her, fist-bumps Bellamy which Clarke explains is Raven’s sign of good faith, and whispers into her ear: “Not fucking cute, ha?”

Octavia and Lincoln come next, Octavia winking playfully at first Clarke and then her brother. Lincoln is more timid but they’re both overjoyed.

There are drinks all around, everyone’s laughing and making fun of them but it’s the good kind of teasing, the kind Clarke feels really good about because Bellamy is next to her, grinning like a kid whenever his gaze lands on her.

They sit in a booth, squeezing to make enough room for everyone, and Bellamy leans over the table, eyes scanning everyone.

“Is anyone here going to take my class next year?”

At first, they don’t know how to react but Bellamy rolls his eyes and they all shake their heads.

“Good! Then you’re not my students and I can say this: Octavia, beers for everyone!”

And then it’s ecstatic, everyone’s toasting to their professor and Clarke, and to them respectively, they’re all wondering about Clarke’s college and how the two of them are going to make it, but it’s great. It’s being happy.

It takes everyone some time to fall back into same patterns, Raven chatting with Clarke, Miller and Monty whispering among themselves, even Jasper is there with his girlfriend, Wick and Murphy are talking to Bellamy about mythology. Octavia joins Raven and Clarke and the three of them discuss motorcycles, mechanics and art. Lincoln is an artist too so he jumps in, talking to Clarke about the college she’s transferring to. They feel like family. Slightly dysfunctional, all around the place, but a family nonetheless.

Clarke squeezes Bellamy’s hand and their eyes meet. It’s only a moment before he’s leaning in and she’s straightening up, and they’re kissing again.

And despite the protests from everyone about too much damn PDA, it felt so fucking good to be finally able to do that. To kiss him. To love him freely.

 


	2. Tu Me Manques

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke faces consequences for falling in love with Bellamy, leaves for Europe with Raven and mostly just has a great time and misses her geek boyfriend very much.

Clarke and Raven leave for London on July 05th and they are _so_ ready to explore Europe. It’s a week in London, a couple of days in Dublin and Edinburgh, and then they are off to Paris for another week. After that, it’s Italy – for a week, too, and they’ve already got it all planned out, and they’re back home after a weekend in Vienna. It’s not much but it’s a month in Europe.

Clarke is in shreds because she and Bellamy had been together for only 20 days and it feels so new and unexplored, like an uncharted territory and now she has to leave him. There’s the question of whether he’ll change his mind because what they have is wonderful, granted, but it’s also a lot of work and Abby constantly nagging him for hooking up with his student. That’s going to get him a reputation, even if he tries to pretend like he’s not bothered. Clarke tried talking to her but her mom is just as stubborn as she is, constantly prompting her to break it off because she is going to Washington and Bellamy is staying there which is just too much trouble for a new relationship.

And it’s new. So painfully new Clarke can almost smell the freshly opened package plastic and she has no grounds from which she can shout the argument of “I love him!” in defense of their relationship. It sucks.

Bellamy isn’t helping either because everything he cares about in those twenty days is hugging and kissing Clarke, keeping her close to him and she knows it’s going to feel like she’s missing a limb once she’s on the plane, but she still snuggles up closer to him and tries to forget all the problems this has brought on her. It’s that good and she is so ridiculously happy she can’t even believe it. She doesn’t have a shred of doubt in her.

They try talking about it one night, when she’s nestled in the crook of his arm with eyes closed – but not sleeping, and he’s reading a mythology book with his glasses – because of course he has glasses, what a geek, what a fucking hot geek, tempting her to infinity – perched on top of his nose. He knows she’s not sleeping so he finally closes the book and looks at her, waiting patiently.

“Is my mom still bothering you?” she finally asks, snuggling even closer because he is so warm and she feels unbearably cold without him at her side.

Bellamy huffs and then looks up at the ceiling, clearly annoyed, but he doesn’t let go of her. She takes it as a good sign.

“We’ve been over this a million times, Clarke.”

“I know. I’m sorry, but I know how much this job means to you and I don’t want you to risk it for me. For this”, she vaguely flails her arms around. It’s supposed to mean ‘a new relationship’. She’s heard it so many times it practically became a part of what they are. It shouldn’t be like that but it is, and she really doesn’t want him risking the job he loves for her, of all people.

He looks taken aback, eyebrows furrowing and a small crease between them as he returns the stare. She prays he doesn’t let go. He doesn’t, his arms are still wrapped around her, the two of them forming a weird-looking burrito on his bed.

“Clarke, if you don’t want to be with me, it’s fine. You can tell me, I won’t get pissed off or anything.”

Because of course he is considerate and then she rips herself from him, throwing herself on her back and taking to stare at the ceiling.

“I want to be with you. That’s all I want to do. All the freaking time,” she mumbles, rolling her eyes because it’s pretty obvious. “I just want you to know you can back out, you can totally say you care about your job too much to get yourself into a shitty position because of me.”

The room is enveloped in silence for a while and then she turns to look at him because she is not patient, not at all, and it’s worrying her. But Bellamy is smiling at her incredulously. And when he spots her looking at him with an obvious need for explanation in her eyes, he scoots to where she is on the bed and comes up on his elbows.

There’s something just so wonderful about him reclined next to her, looking at her like he finally understands, and she knows she wouldn’t be able to let go – even if she needed to. She’d still serenade him or something just as bad if he actually took her offer to break it off.

“Do you think I want to do that?” he asks, staring at the small space between their bodies like it has personally pissed him off. “I don’t care about what your mom says because we didn’t do anything wrong. And she’s going to get bored eventually. Even if she doesn’t, I don’t care. I really don’t care about anything except you, here, with me. I’m in love with you.”

And then he’s smiling, that shy smile of his that makes him want to avert his gaze but she knows he keeps holding on – probably because he is totally aware of how irresistible he is. Dimples form in his cheeks when he smiles like this, and it’s the most beautiful thing Clarke has ever seen. Plus, hearing Bellamy say he’s in love with her, well, that kind of makes everything easier because she’d been shying away from saying that for a while now – not wanting to look needy or weird or anything.

Ultimately, that’s all a big and unnecessary concern because here they are, worrying about things that don’t matter when they obviously care about each other too much to back out now. It might be a new relationship but she feels like she’s known him for ages, and she’s pretty sure he feels the same way (from what she’d seen and from what Octavia had told her, and O never lies – only rolls her eyes and tells them they are so stupid that she has to go barf) so it seems pointless to worry.

“Jesus, Bellamy, that’s so embarrassing. You’re in love with me,” she smirks and rolls her eyes, trying to be serious but failing miserably.

“We’ve been dating for some time now, Princess. I think it’s kind of given.”

“Still, what a huge nerd you are.”

And then he starts tickling her, poking and prodding into her sides with his fingers, and she’s a mess of contracting and twitching limbs as she tries hard not to let out a shrilling laugh. He’s relentless, and finally he lets her go when she’s back to being snuggled up to him. They stare at each other like they’re fifteen and just made out behind the bleachers, too in love to function.

“So we’re good, you’re sure you don’t want to break up with me?” she asks, looking up at him.

“Nah, it’s too late to back out now. You’ve had me at ‘I don’t know about Zeus, but I’m feeling horny right now’. That’s when I knew you were the one.”

“Thought so,” Clarke smirks in satisfaction but her moment of gloating doesn’t last long because Bellamy’s all over her again and she really wants to get a point of him being a nerd across by talking mythology to him. Normal couples talk dirty, but the two of them – they talk mythology. It’s kinda sad.

 

* * *

 

Clarke and Bellamy don’t fight about worrying anymore, they kind of just let it go and he becomes a little more unhelpful. But in all the sweet ways, like when she’s packing and trying to fit as many things as possible in a very miniature suitcase, and he brings a plate of spaghetti over. Clarke never refuses spaghetti. And then it’s a mess because they’ve decided to recreate the spaghetti ball scene from Lady and the Tramp so she has to start over.

Finally, when she’s made him promise not to distract her while she’s packing, he sits on her bed, very quiet and very still until she thinks he’s probably left and lifts her head to check.

She notices he’s looking at her. Well, he’s always looking at her so it’s not a terribly grand deal, but this is different. He looks sad and she acts on her first impulse, and that is to drop everything and hug him.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, eyeing him warily but still close to him. His hands sneak around her waist and he presses her even closer as he’s dropping his head on her shoulder.

“I’ll miss you.”

And his voice is filled with so much sadness she wants to drop everything and just stay with him until they are old and grey and unemployed because they can’t work together but refuse to be apart. When she offers to do it, he looks at her and laughs, sadness and the desire to be happy melting into one in his eyes.

“We’ll be apart longer than we’ve been together,” he’s smiling but it’s a very faint smile and she realizes the weight of his words.

“Yeah, we will. But you can use the time to find yourself a nice teacher who’s gonna marry you and who’s probably totally hotter than me. Like Mrs. Johnson, she’s cute, right?” Clarke offers, but both of them burst out laughing because Mrs. Johnson is a Chemistry lecturer and she’s about a hundred years old. “She probably remembers Nero burning Rome.”

“A total dreamboat, agreed. Get out, I’m calling her over.”

And then it’s lighter again and she resumes packing, but not before she’s kissed him and made sure he knows that they are, in fact, going to make it through this month. They are a wreck of what-ifs even though neither he nor she think that there is anything wrong with them, and they really just want to be together. The simplicity proves to be more complicated than the actual troubles.

 Still, it’s good. She feels good about this. Sad that she’s leaving but good because she will be back and then they have a whole month to spend together. Probably taking care of Tondc but even that’s something.

Just as she’s settling a blouse into her suitcase, the door to her room bursts open and then there is Raven peering from the doorway, a crazed look on her face. She stops in her tracks, looks at Bellamy, looks at Clarke and mutters a silent ‘yup’ to herself.

“I forgot you’re dating the teacher now. Sorry, Blake,” she nods toward him and he waves his hand in an uncaring manner.

“What do you want, Raven?” Clarke demands, leaning back from her closet.

“Well, I wanted food and you to eat it with me but since you’re otherwise occupied,” she nods toward Bellamy again and Clarke is beginning to feel that this is getting a little weird, “I’ll go starve.”

Raven’s way of talking to people is usually sarcasm and playful banter. That takes some time to get used to, but Clarke doesn’t think Bellamy minds because he laughs and then gets up from her bed.

“I’ll make something. Spaghetti with tomato sauce, if that’s fine?”

“Superb. You’ve got yourself a chef, nice work, Griffin,” Raven winks in Clarke’s direction and then both of them scuttle off. It’s like a ticking time bomb, waiting to hear a sign of a fight or something because you never actually know with Raven. But the only thing Clarke hears is laughter, instead of plates smashing.

When she’s done packing, Clarke closes her suitcase and goes to the kitchen, where Raven is pouring wine into three glasses and Bellamy is messing around the stove with a pan in his hand. His nose is scrunched so she takes a look over his shoulder, thinking he’d probably burned something, but it looks and smells as delicious as ever.

“Raven was right, I really scored a good deal,” she whispers into his ear and presses her lips to his cheek. It’s the domesticity she loves, him cooking and her walking around, everything feeling as natural as it should.

“Mine was better, though,” he retorts with a grin and turns over the pasta into the plates in one swift motion, all the while holding his arm around Clarke’s waist.

They arrange the dishes and set themselves around a small wooden table, barely big enough for the plates to fit, but not for them not to bump elbows and laugh every time that happens. Clarke tries to play footsie with Bellamy, but she accidentally nudges Raven and then they’re laughing again.

By the time they are done and the dishes are stacked in the sink, it’s a nice sort of buzz they’ve caught due to the wine. They’re sitting on the couch, Clarke is leaning on Bellamy and Raven is on the other side, motioning with her wine glass and the liquid just waiting to spill, but it’s so comfortable Clarke wishes she never has to leave.

Bellamy is running his fingers through her hair as he talks to Raven, Clarke dozing off in his arms. Then she finally realizes – this feels like _family_.

Abby and Jake were never exactly crazy stupid happy when they were together. And when shit hit the fan, Clarke was caught in the crossfire between them. It stopped feeling like a family – there were too many uncomfortable silences for them to be anything more than incidental roommates who shared DNA.

But now there is Raven, obviously tipsy and laughing with her eyebrows raised, legs curled under her as they all try to fit on the small couch, and there is Bellamy, cheeks red from the wine and a light-as-a-feather smile toying on his lips. And they are family. Not by blood, but by something much stronger. By choice.

And knowing that, it’s so much easier to fall asleep.

 

* * *

 

The next day, Clarke wakes up with a throbbing headache from too much wine, but it’s nothing than an Advil won’t fix. Bellamy slept over, she vaguely remembers telling him to stay because she’s not letting him drive tipsy, and when she opens her eyes, she’s staring right into his chest, nestled into his side. Her left leg and arm are thrown over him in a funny hug, and his right hand is wrapped around her waist. She wants to laugh but manages to only chuckle, not having it in her heart to wake him up.

When she tries to get up, he won’t let her so she settles back into his chest, closing her eyes. If she’s slept this long, she can sleep a little more. Everything is happening right on time as long as Raven is not barging in and screaming at her to wake up.

Clarke knows she’s too far gone when she realizes that she actually loves this, the two of them, sleeping. And his face, their bodies intertwined. But before she’s had enough time to think and squeal internally about that, she feels him stirring and moves away slightly.

Bellamy’s eyelashes flutter open and she’s so close she can count his freckles. It’d be the right time to start, she figures, so she begins tracing her finger over his nose and his cheeks.

“Morning, Princess.”

“Goooood morning,” she says in a sing-song voice and then continues counting. “25. So far.”

Bellamy is confused so she shrugs, dropping her gaze toward his chest and then resumes from there, counting under her breath.

“Um, Clarke? What are you doing?”

“Sssh, I won’t know where I’m at. Counting, obviously. 50.”

He’s still confused, but then there’s understanding dawning in his eyes so he laughs, the weight of his hand pressing harder into her side as his muscles relax. He gives up. The best thing to do when faced with a Clarke.

She does it for a few minutes and then she’s bored so she’s burying her face in the crook between his neck and shoulders, enveloping him in a rib-cracking hug.

“You have 80 freckles so far. That’s a good score, congrats,” she says, completely aware of the fact that no one should be that happy when they are hungover.

“Wait, so are you the teacher or am I the teacher?” he asks, but his hands are gliding down her back and pressing her closer.

“Shut up, you’re the dork.”

They do this for a while, teasing each other and making the other one laugh, but Clarke’s alarm sounds soon enough and she gets up with a huge chunk of ice in her stomach because her mother insisted on a lunch. There are two ways that can go, Clarke knows: it can either go bad or it can go worse. She’d like to fool herself into thinking that her mother wants to say goodbye before Clarke’s gone to Europe, but she knows Abby. And Abby is not about that.

She might say ‘Have a good trip’ after she’d already made Clarke feel like shit.

Bellamy has breakfast with her, and then they leave together, having left Raven a note. Eleven thirty is too early for a drunk Raven so Clarke doesn’t even bother trying to wake her up, but instead walks over to Bellamy’s car with him. It’s a nice looking Toyota, spacious enough but with more than ten thousand miles on the counter so it’s not new. To Clarke, it doesn’t matter at all. To Abby, it does. And then she’s reminded again of how different she is from her mother and how wonderful that feels, even if it hurts most of the time.

“Good luck,” Bellamy leans over to her side and kisses her when they’ve arrived in front of the restaurant. Clarke can see her mother on the terrace, going through the newspaper and she cringes upon sight.

“Thanks.”

It takes her longer than usual to walk over to her mother, kiss her cheek and then settle into the chair across from Abby. They sit in silence until a waiter comes over to take their order and after he’s left, that’s when Abby starts.

“I can’t say I’m thrilled with the prospect of you dating Bellamy Blake.”

Her lips are pursed and Clarke finds her own to be the same, along with arms crossed at her chest. It’s the defensive stance she always has when her mother is near that’s killing her. She’s a different Clarke Griffin when she’s with her mother.

“It’s not prospect, it’s reality,” Clarke retorts, sounding every bit as bitter as she feels.

“He was your teacher, and he could get into serious trouble if someone starts thinking you were together before the year was over.”

“But that’s not going to happen, is it?”

“What do you mean?”

Abby looks at Clarke like she doesn’t understand what her daughter is saying.

“It’s not going to happen because you will make sure no one says that. That is _not_ what happened and you know it. And besides, you wouldn’t want your daughter to have that sort of reputation.”

Why does every conversation with her mother feels like a negotiation? If not, then, if yes, then no, and to infinity. It’s a heap of terms and conditions, and an unlikely compromise in the end. Why couldn’t they just meet up for brunch and talk about what’s new in their lives? Why does everything have to feel like a fucking hostage situation?

Abby thinks Clarke’s words over and then leans back in her seat.

“You still don’t understand that I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Well, maybe you should have thought about that when you cheated on dad.”

Something cracks in Abby’s eyes and Clarke knows she’s taken it a step too far, but she’s fucking fuming and there’s not a single cell in her body that cares about what Abby feels.

“Do not pull that card on me, Clarke! Don’t you dare!” there’s an almost tangible threat to Abby’s voice.

“Actually, I will. Because you didn’t care about me then. Like you didn’t care when you dropped me off at grandma’s and took some time to figure it out,” Clarke rolls her eyes, “Why couldn’t you have cared then? Why start now?”

The waiter arrives and whatever Abby wanted to say is gone now, as they dig into their food. Clarke’s stomach is twisting and there’s so much disgust in her for having this conversation that it seems virtually impossible for her to stay there for a moment longer.

But she stays. She finishes her deviled eggs and leans back in her chair, waiting for her mother to finish her foie gras.

“Clarke, I can’t fight you anymore. Whatever I say, you take it the wrong way. You wanted to go study art and I came to terms with that. But this, this is a whole another level of crazy. So let me tell you what’s going to happen,” Abby leans forward, clasping her arms in the middle of the table, “You are going to keep dating Blake. And then you’ll struggle through your last year of college because you are going to miss him. You’ll get a job offer in Washington or in New York, but you are going to refuse it because of him. Fast forward and you’ll be forty years old, unhappy with a job you took to be close to him and a bunch of kids that are going to stop you from doing what you actually want to do.”

Clarke stares at her mother in disbelief, fingers clutching the sides of the table so hard the knuckles start turning white, and she has to bite into her lower lip to stop herself from getting embarrassed by crying.

Because Abby always knows anything. She’s a well full of wisdom but somehow, her own life started turning shit before her eyes and now she thinks she has any idea what Clarke is about. It’s the hypocrisy that sends Clarke over the edge and then she’s up, shouting in the middle of the terrace with everyone staring at her.

She wants to say something hurtful but there’s enough hurt in the air already, so she settles for a simple “Go to hell”, full volume, and turns around, leaving a shocked Abby behind, to march into the street.

Tears are welling in Clarke’s eyes as she runs down the street and then finally pauses behind a corner, where no one can see her slamming herself into the wall and sliding down to the pavement, tears falling, tears soaking up her shirt and tears making her want to scream in outrage because why the hell has she done this, why the hell has Abby done everything she did, and why the fucking hell does she feel like she needs to fight for Bellamy Blake. Why does it matter so much that she’s screaming at her mother for it, why does it feel like she’s breaking into pieces over something that shouldn’t matter _this_ fucking much?

Her phone is in her hands before she’s even realized what she’s doing, and then it’s Bellamy’s voice on the phone and he’s panicking because she’s not saying anything, only crying into the speaker. She manages to press out the address and he promises to be there in a minute.

Abby doesn’t follow her, and Clarke reprimands herself for even thinking her mother would do that. Abby never follows, Abby commands, and now they are over. It feels so final that Clarke’s gasping for breath, curled against the wall with her face on her knees, and any hope she had for making things better with her mom is now gone. If she thought things were hopeless before, now she knows she was wrong. _This_ was the end.

“Clarke?”

She hears footsteps on the pavement near her, and then a gasp.

“Oh God, Clarke.”

Bellamy kneels next to her and she feels him wrapping his arms around her, pressing her closer and kissing the top of her head. It feels like Abby should be the one doing this. Comforting her. Helping her. But she’s not.

He smells like sandalwood and she must reek of desperation because that’s how she feels right now. It wasn’t about him. Well, it was. A good part of it was about him. But this would have happened if she was with anyone else. This would have happened and had happened whenever Clarke wanted to go her own way, and not the one Abby considered to be the right. So it is about Bellamy, and it isn’t. It’s about Clarke and Abby, the two enemies who are constantly waging a war when they should love each other. Some mothers aren’t made to be mothers, Clarke knows. She knows that some mothers are biological but they don’t love, can’t love with all of their might. She shouldn’t be blaming Abby but she is, because that’s the only way not to come down with all the fury on herself.

She’s a sobbing, incoherent mess as Bellamy helps her to the car, and she’s still a mess when he’s driving, her knees pulled up to her chest, and he keeps looking over at her, his hand on her shoulder throughout the drive. When they make it to her apartment, she’s not sobbing anymore but Raven knows that something is wrong because she hugs her as soon as she lays her eyes on her.

“What happened?” Raven asks, looking at Bellamy.

“Abby.”

And then Raven grabs her phone and storms off to her room before Clarke can protest. Raven and Abby go a long way, because Abby is the one who decided they should accept Raven in spite of her bad grades. She knows about Raven’s mother who is an addict and who didn’t care about herself, much less about her daughter’s education, she knows how brilliant Raven is and Clarke can still hear Raven shouting at Abby in the other room.

Bellamy turns to her on the couch, so close she can feel the warmth of his breath on her nose, head to head.

“Am I really worth it?”

“ _I_ am.”

Because it is about him but it isn’t about him. It’s about Clarke first.

He looks at her incredulously and then reaches to her cheek to wipe away her tears and cup her face in his hands.

“I love you.”

“I know,” she nods and smiles because she does. It doesn’t make sense, she’s made fun of girls like the one she is now, falling for the guy they shouldn’t be falling for, but she knows that she’s never felt this sure of anything.

Raven is back to see them hugging on the couch and she approaches Clarke carefully, anger visible in her red cheeks.

“She wishes us a safe trip to Europe. Told me the two of you will talk when you get back.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I know, that’s what I told her,” Raven smirks but she’s by Clarke’s side soon enough and the three of them are like some pathetic hugging sandwich with Clarke in the middle. She feels so fucking loved.

 

* * *

 

Tomorrow morning, Raven and Clarke are laughing in the backseat of Bellamy’s car as he drives them to the airport. They’re hungover, again, because there was a big ‘Bon voyage’ party at Tondc last night, and Clarke doesn’t remember laughing so much since when she was three years old. There was crying prior to that, but then she realized that everyone who would be in Tondc are people she cares about and who care about her. There was no doubt she was going.

So they got drunk, cried a bit more, everyone showered Raven and her with kisses and told them they would miss them, which they would – of course, as Raven had said, and then Octavia poured celebratory shots for everyone and all was well.

Bellamy kept fussing about whether they had everything they needed, managed to stuff them some painkillers – in case they caught a cold or something, and then took them shopping for snacks and salami because “what if you get hungry and nothing’s open?” He’s ridiculous but he cares so Raven and Clarke walk behind him in the supermarket as he stuffs the cart with snacks and cheese and whatever he thinks they’re going to need, and make fun of him.

“You need us to get you a home nurse while we’re gone, old man?” Raven teases and Bellamy rolls his eyes, but it’s all in good humor.

And then they are in the car, laughing and talking about what they’re going to see, with Bellamy constantly pitching in with ideas about art galleries and history museums. Clarke promises him a tons of photos and then he calms down a bit.

When they make it to the Logan Airport, Raven says goodbye to Bellamy and goes in to give them a moment of privacy, so the two of them are standing by the sliding doors and they just look at each other. Clarke wants to tell him so many things but they keep slipping away.

“I love you,” she settles for that because it has everything she wants to say in it, and he hugs her.

“I love you too.”

She’s not crying but he might be, so she smiles her best reassuring grin and after that, he’s escorting her to the check in with his right arm around her, the left already carrying her suitcase.

“And don’t forget to check out D’Orsay in Paris. I mean, it’s the main tourist attraction but you two are probably going to want to skip it so I’m saying – don’t. It’s supposedly gorgeous. I want photos.”

“Yeah, French guys are supposedly gorgeous, too,” Raven teases, much to Bellamy’s bemusement and then waves her hand. “Like I’d let Clarke. Bitch, please.”

“Don’t worry, Bellamy, I prefer you to some Jacques or Pierre.”

They’re joking around until the two of them check in their baggage and the voice on the speaker announces boarding on the flight to London. Bellamy hugs Raven and she pretends like she’s annoyed but she isn’t, really, and he kisses Clarke so deep she feels like getting her suitcase back and going home with him.

“I’ll be here when you get back,” he assures her and then kisses her again. She’s really too fucking tired to worry so she nods, kisses him again and goes toward the security check with Raven. He’s still there, waving to them when they pass the gates and make it to the waiting room.

“We are actually doing this,” Raven turns to her with an excited look on her face. “I know we were going to but we are _actually_ boarding the plane to Europe.”

Then it hits Clarke, because it hadn’t hit her already – due to so much worrying and fighting and all the shit you really don’t need before going on a trip, and she feels restless energy buzzing through her, opening her mind to the new possibilities and all the amazing things they are going to see.

They squeal all the way to the plane, and then squeal some more before they have to buckle their seatbelts and they’re taking off. This is Raven’s first time on a plane and Clarke holds her hand, but soon enough they’ve ordered whiskey, like the pair of jetsetters they are.

It’s going to be alright, Clarke knows as Raven is squeezing her hand in delight. No. Better than that. It’s going to be brilliant.

 

* * *

 

They land in London and there’s not even a whiff of jetlag bothering them. Raven fell asleep half an hour after they took off, and Clarke finds planes to be incredibly successful in making her do the same – she’s an insomniac, but the whirring of the plane’s engine is like a lullaby to her. It doesn’t matter that the economy class seats are uncomfortable and there’s not enough leg room because she leans on the window and curls up her legs – she’s mastered this. Perks of having rich parents, loads of flights.

London is dark and gloomy but it’s not that cold so she and Raven drop off their suitcases in the hostel they’ve previously booked, and set off to explore. Of course, Clarke calls Bellamy when they’ve landed and she can hear the anxiety dissolving in his voice.

European ground is just as firm as the American one, but there’s so much history in every step they take it’s practically impossible to close their mouths. London is gorgeous and they take all the tourist-y pics they need to, like the one hugging Big Ben because when in London, do as tourists do.

On the third day, they’re in the Natural History museum and they get kicked out because Raven is mesmerized by the way a huge mechanical dinosaur works so she starts poking around for a control panel. They get spotted and thrown out, prompting Clarke to go on a rant that stops only when Raven buys her a beer and they get pissed drunk.

It’s not until they make it to Paris that Clarke realizes that she misses Bellamy, real bad. Ten days have passed, and Raven and she are having the time of their lives, it’s like that one trip you always wanted to make with your best friend, but she feels a pang of nostalgia buried somewhere deep in her chest. They talk a lot, Skype when there’s Wi-Fi because intercontinental roaming is a bitch, and she’s so obvious in looking for internet wherever they go that Raven simply rolls her eyes when they’re in Louvre and asks the guard for the password.

“You’re pathetic, you can’t help it,” Raven makes a dismissive motion with her hand and then saunters off to wherever she can get the password.

“It’s for Snapchat, he wants to see Mona Lisa!” Clarke yells after her but Raven’s ponytail is bobbing so she knows her best friend is laughing at the pathetic excuses she insists on making.

Raven comes back with the password written on a piece of paper, and they take photos of themselves making stupid faces at Mona Lisa (Bellamy had gone on a rant prior to their departure; “It’s so overrated, there are better things to see in Louvre! Like history!”) and making excited ones at whichever painting they think Bellamy would like.

They’re tired by 6 pm and so they find a bench to sit on and lean against each other, staring at a huge painting depicting one battle or the other. It’s all the same to Clarke, she was never particularly into history, but it’s beautiful. She admires the technique, oil on canvas and fine precision strokes that make it seem like it’s a photo, not a painting. It’s not her style, not particularly, she prefers coal and drawing on her notepad; that way it seems more real. Moments frozen in time, seemingly small because they are on a small piece of paper, but God, they warm up her heart.

She thinks back to the time when she decided to apply for the college in Washington, adamant that what she wants to do is art. Not medicine, even though she was good at that too. Clarke is good at things, she’s perseverant enough to persist through troubles and make it through to the other side where everything is as easy as brushing a stray eyelash off your cheek. There are people who envy her because it seems like it’s a natural talent for so many things, but they haven’t seen her when her brow furrows in concentration and she bites her lip hard enough to draw blood because she can’t get the hang of something.

Those who do know her appreciate it. Those who don’t mock it. But she’s not bothered because Raven’s head is leaning on her shoulder and her friend lets out a small sigh, making Clarke drape her arms around the brunette’s shoulders.

“This is just so fucking beautiful.”

“I know,” Clarke smiles at Raven and the two of them just stay there for a while, each one in their own thoughts.

“I’m so glad we’re friends, Clarke.”

That kind of honesty coming from Raven is an extremely rare thing. Raven jokes around, she teases and has an exquisite self-deprecating sense of humor, allowing her to say a lot about herself without saying anything of substance at all. When you know where to look, you can even see that caginess in her eyes, an addict’s child who had to put up walls high and strong enough not to be brought down, who had to keep secrets and who wrapped herself in humor so she wouldn’t collapse. Raven Reyes is brave and Clarke loves her so fucking much.

There’s no one else she’d rather be on a trip with.

Days later, Raven turns into a total kid when she sees the Eiffel Tower up close. She’s fascinated by the building, by the mechanics of it, and then stares through the glass floor when they’re on their way to the top. Clarke takes out her sketchpad while Raven pokes an eye through the fence and admires the whole of Paris. There’s something beautiful about it, in the elegant side of it they see when walking through the Diplomatic Quarter after Louvre, the bohemian side in the Latin Quarter – the art in Montmartre.

Clarke huffs and puffs when they ascend the steps to the basilica of Sacre Coeur, and then looks up, looks around, feels the particular effect the place has on her. There’s a woman on the corner, making portraits for tourists who come by, and there’s a boy with a guitar, singing a chanson with so much feeling it even rubs off on Clarke. There’s sadness and there’s beauty, and that’s Paris, she realizes. It’s keeping your head up even when the waves are rushing in. It’s looking good while going to hell. It’s surviving, beneath the beautiful facades, beneath fancy clothes – it’s the art of thriving instead of merely surviving.

The two of them walk through Montmartre holding hands, stopping by every stand that has cool art or something they want to buy or just look at. Clarke dreams of getting a small apartment just there, over a café that has stars painted on the awning, maybe just her and Bellamy and a tiny place they could pack with art and books and just spend the days on the balcony overlooking Paris and eating croissants.

It overwhelms her with sadness and then there is a couple, just standing in the middle of the square and kissing like they’ve seen so much of each other and still want more because it’s not enough. She knows the feeling, and there’s something so heart-wrenching about the way their hands brush, travelling up and down their lover’s body like it’s a map and they are treasure-hunters. Burn my lips and engulf my soul, because there is so much giving up in love and Clarke just doesn’t want to hold on anymore.

Tu me manques, it’s a saying in French, and it means “I miss you” but it means even more than that. Clarke remembers her high school French teacher, Mrs. Campbell who believed with all of her might in the power of Paris, in the romanticism of it. She’d never even seen it and yet, there were so many dreams in her eyes when she spoke of the three words. It wasn’t only ‘I miss you’, it was feeling someone so strongly to be a part of yourself that when they were not with you, it felt like missing an important piece of yourself. I miss you from me, you are so distant and I want you to be so close. It wasn’t a simple ‘I wish you were here’, it was a ‘I wish you were here with me’, I wish we were one like we used to be, I wish there was never a moment when we’re apart.

Clarke is crying before she knows she’s doing it and then Raven is hugging her and dialing a number on her phone, no one even stopping to look at them because it only seems natural that you would be overwhelmed in Montmartre. 

“Blake? Yeah, you need to talk to Clarke, I think,” Raven eyes her warily but then gives her the phone and she’s clutching it with all of her strength.

She used to laugh at Mrs. Campbell because love is a satire, love isn’t that much but now it is and she’s in pieces.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Bellamy’s voice over the phone is concerned and Clarke wants to laugh because this is a good thing.

“I don’t know if I can do Washington. I miss you so much and it’s been only two weeks. I want you with me.”

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, he sighs and she can almost imagine his face like he was right next to her, tired and worried and struggling for words because he knows and she knows, and they have no idea how to make things better.

“I miss you too. But you need to go to Washington,” he reassures her and then his voice trails off for a second before he’s back, “Tell me about Paris. Where are you?”

She tells him about Montmartre, and the awning and the dream of an apartment there where she could draw throughout the day and he could write a history book and they could be happy there, she tells him about the couple and she tells him about the cracks in the pavement where flowers bloom.

They talk for a while and Raven is quiet at her side, smiling a private little smile with her head leaning on her open palms while she’s looking somewhere behind Clarke. It feels like magic, that moment in time.

Bellamy tells her about his day and about the bar. How he likes mixing drinks and how there are hours when there’s nothing happening so he actually works on the book he’d been meaning to write, a mythology overview for kids. He’s good at it, she tells him, because she’d seen the first chapter and the lightweight voice he has. If you know something well enough, you don’t have to complicate it – you can explain it so that it seems easy to absolutely everyone.

She loves him but she respects him and admires him more than that, it’s the fine thread of silk woven into her feelings, and there’s nothing in the world she’d like more than just to be able to hold his hand.

“I’m going to kiss you in Paris one day,” she hears him smiling as he’s saying it, “Just you wait and see.”

“I will hold you to that.”

And then it’s her and Raven again, the call ending with a funny little beep, and they walk over to their hotel, get a bottle of wine from the minibar and sit talking on the window seat. In the distance, Paris is twinkling and waking up in the middle of the night. Clarke had seen the lights of New York, but Paris is something unique.

For the first time in what seems like forever, Clarke climbs into Raven’s bed and they fall asleep pressed to each other, whispering like they are still in high school and have a crush on the hot quarterback. Clarke had no idea you could be this happy while you were that sad. But she is. And trailing off to sleep knowing you were loved, well, it makes you not want to dream because your life is as good as it can be.

 

* * *

 

Rome is sun and gelato and throwing the penny over your left shoulder, making a wish. In front of the Di Trevi fountain, you get the feeling that miracles are possible. Clarke believes in them, in spite of her scientific mind that she has to shut up because it shouts messages full of negativity into her ear. What she does rather than moan in her room throughout the vacation is rent a Vespa and drive through the city on it with Raven. They laugh so much Clarke’s cheeks start hurting and Raven swears she’s developing abs.

At sunset, they sit on the banks of Tiber, wining and dining, sandal-clad legs splayed on the fence. Raven likes to look in the distance, mind trailing off as sadness and happiness intertwine on her face, and Clarke has her sketchbook at ready. One night, she uses her lipstick to show the color of the sunset because it is red and orange, and it’s reflecting on the water, creating the most picturesque scene she’d ever seen.

On their final night in Rome, they are in the same restaurant where the waiters already know their names. There’s a sweet feeling of sorrow and nostalgia for the place you’re still at, and they find themselves going through bottles of wine without feeling one bit affected. They recount getting thrown out of the Natural History museum in London, a play they’d seen lying on the grass in the Hyde Park, the double-deckers and the coffee shops. Clarke flips through her sketchbooks until she’s found the drawings she’s made of Edinburgh, fantastic architecture and breath-taking sights from the top of the castle overlooking the city. Raven jingles her key chain, and they think of Dublin – the street artists, the cobblestone pavements and Guinness. Paris brings tears to both their eyes because it was emotion-soaked for both of them – Paris just wants to crawl under your skin and stay there, the prickling of the feet that want to take you back, it wants to leave such an impression that you don’t feel like you belong anywhere else. They think of its book stands and art stands and the Eiffel Tower, and Montmartre. The way they held hands walking through museums and the throbbing in their jaws from spreading their mouths wide in awe.  
  
Clarke flips through the photos in her phone, all of them showing their smiling (or ridiculous) faces. They’re posing in front of the Eiffel Tower, Clarke wearing a hoodie reading ‘I (heart) Paris’ which would have been shameful had they not decided to drop all pretense and simply revel in the feeling of being American tourists, and Raven is wonderfully and completely casually elegant in her dark jeans and a leather jacket. They look happy, just as ecstatic as they seem when posing on the Spanish Steps in Rome. They dressed better for the occasion because – duh, Rome – so their legs are in the first plan, crossed at ankles as they’re wearing dresses and laughing, sunglasses still tucked on top of their heads.

Looking at the photos, they remember tiny moments that might risk being forgotten except they wouldn’t let that happen. Raven constantly writes them down in the note app of her phone and excuses it by saying they need to remember it when they’re old and grey and their grandkids think they haven’t had a moment of fun in their lives. She’s a big softie, but Clarke doesn’t say it because she loves Raven and Raven loves her apologizing for feelings, so she might as well buy Finn coffee for arranging the meet-up. It feels unreal, to be allowed to be this happy.

They see Venice, too, and ride on a gondola steered by a gondolier who sings to them and compliments them so much Clarke leaves a massive tip. They take pictures, post them on Facebook with captions like “So in love” and heart-eyes emoji, and get comments from their squad along the lines of “It was destined to happen” and “Lucky bastards”.

From Rome, they take off to Florence and see every single art gallery in two days. It requires an insane amount of running and Clarke’s calves hurt the day after but she spends the day long trip to Vienna by train sketching. She loves Paris, but she loved Italy too. Never a wanderess, but now she feels like becoming one. Raven stirs in her sleep in the small compartment, looks over her through the window and collapses back on the seat when she can’t see anything but endless green plains. They stop in Zagreb, eat a couple of sandwiches, and then they’re so close to Vienna Clarke can almost feel it.

It’s like being transported to mid-1900s with Viennese architecture and cafes. Still, they decide to take it easy during those three days and Clarke mainly spends the first one sleeping and the second texting Bellamy the details of their return flight. A feeling arises in her, that feeling you get when you’re almost done with your trip and you want to stay longer but you also long for being home and reminiscing on everything wonderful you’ve experienced.

Vienna feeds them cakes and it feels more decadent than Versailles, so by the time they’re through the gates, making their way to the plane bound to take them home, they’re stuffed and tired. Bellamy sends her a text right before she has to turn her phone off, saying how happy he is to see her in a couple of hours. This time, Raven doesn’t tease her, just squeezes her hand harder and tells her how happy she is they’ve done this.

“Me too”, Clarke smiles back and then they’re taking off, the whirlwind in her stomach and then peace, silence, floating comfortably on the height of two or three thousand miles.

The flight doesn’t feel long at all, they’ve got comfy socks on their feet and get up only to use the restroom and then collapse back in their seats. All of the exhaustion they’ve built up now comes to have its way but they don’t protest – it was worth it in many more ways than one. It isn’t before long that the stewardess comes to wake them up because they are landing and buckling seatbelts is a must.

Time slows down as they sneak glances toward each other, wanting to hold hands again but they’re carrying too many things and then it hits Clarke that she’s going to see Bellamy. She’d run but he is there, she knows he is there because the first thing she did in the bus taking them to the gate was check her phone (a single text, “Waiting : ) “ on it) so she knows. Even if it hadn’t been for the text, she’d know he was there. And maybe she wants to stretch those precious minutes of knowing she is going to see him without actually setting her eyes on him, the sweet feeling of waiting and yearning, something you want desperately at the reach of your fingertips.

There is not a tired bone in her body when she sees him. A wave of energy, pure heat, pure electric runs through her and she’s nothing but dazed when her eyes find the mop of curly, dark hair, white shirt on dark body, eyes that shine so bright she could see it from the world’s end. It’s funny, she thinks, how she stops and stares, ignoring Raven pulling her sleeve and people rushing past her. If she could bottle the moment of seeing him like this, her heart swelling with need and love, and his face colored in different shades of red, from loving to shy, a smile that is all teeth creating dimples in his cheeks.

He spreads his arms, made for her and her only, and then it’s nothing but love when she drops everything and runs into them. She can hear her suitcase clattering to the floor and Raven swearing, but without actual heat to it, but her legs are wrapped around his waist and her fingers are clutching to his neck as she showers his whole face with kisses and shouts that she’s never, ever letting him go.

Bellamy’s hands are steadying her as he leans both of them forward and plants his lips on hers, that sweet everything (how could it ever be nothing when everything is too much with him, but just enough) she’s been waiting for a very long time. And he whispers into her ear that he’s never letting her go either and God, how much he’d missed her. There’s no dignity in that, but there’s never any dignity in love. It scorches your lips and devours your soul, and somehow, you always crawl back for more. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't actually going to continue this fic. It was imagined as a one-shot but then I felt the strong need to let Raven and Clarke be happy in Europe (these kids have had a hard enough time as it is, they deserve to be happy) and to show how much Clarke misses Bellamy. I don't know, I'm a sucker for them. And travelling. I suppose you can tell. :)
> 
> If you want to send me prompts or just prepare blankets and chocolate for these kids I cry about on a daily basis, hit me up on my [tumblr](http://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com).
> 
> Next up - the fine art of scraping through Clarke's year in Washington!


	3. The Art of Scraping Through

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And this is how they cope with the 440 miles separating them.

Summer breezed past them in sunlight-filled mornings, scorching hot afternoons spent by the bar of Tondc and pointedly ignoring what is going to happen when August ends and all there is left is September, stretching into infinity of waiting and pressing play only when the week is over.

Bellamy and Clarke were happy, mostly because they were together. Sometimes Clarke found herself lying in his bed in the middle of the night, astounded by the fact that she was happy as long as she could crawl into his bed at the end of the day and wake up in the morning, alone but knowing he is in the kitchen and her coffee is ready. Their fingers and cheeks brushed when he’d hand her the mug and the amount of touching they did was something they weren’t even aware of until Raven pointed it out. Even if they were sitting together and doing nothing, their thighs and legs brushed. When he was making dinner and she was traipsing around him, looking for one thing or the other, they’d peck each other on the cheek, fingertips brushing backs and waists, smiling. They weren’t exactly aware of it, but it kept happening. Almost like even they weren’t aware of exactly how much they loved being together.

When Clarke came back from Europe, she pretty much moved to Bellamy’s place. Half of her stuff was still in the apartment she had been sharing with Raven, but after Wick started spending the nights over more and more often, and Clarke couldn’t bring herself to walk out the door instead of sleeping with Bellamy, they just figured this was for the better. He didn’t mind. Well, it’s not that he didn’t just mind – it was that he offered it and when Clarke took up his offer, he picked her up and spun her around, beaming like a kid on Christmas Eve.

So they started living together, even if it was for only a brief period of time. They got up together and fell asleep together, separated only when he was in Tondc and she wanted to paint. It was new, the acrylic smell coming from the tubes and insecure lines drawn with paintbrushes but after Europe, she’d wanted to try it. She still loved sketching, but this was good too, vivid shapes and surrealist landscapes she could have only seen in her dreams. Never has she been this sure that studying art was the best choice.

But as all good things come to an end, the sand in the hourglass of August trickled out, and she was packing again. This time it was cardboard boxes overflowing with books and souvenirs from Europe and nearly faded Polaroid photos from her childhood. There was an easel too, the one which Bellamy somehow managed to fit into his car. Of course he’d wanted to drive her and she wanted the same. It didn’t mean she wasn’t going to get a car because that was the plan – she’d buy something in Washington and then drive over to Boston every Friday. The money she inherited from her father still hadn’t run out, and wouldn’t for some time, so she could at least use it, instead of accumulating interest rates and saving it up for something in the vague future.

The day before she left, they were in Tondc again. Octavia and Lincoln had come back too, sun-kissed and restless from their trip. They still had that aura of wandering that travelers usually had. So they talked about Europe and the motorcycle trip, about Clarke’s college and about absolutely everything in between. The rest of the gang was there, too, and so they all talked at the same time, laughed and cried. Raven might have cracked Clarke’s rib in the whirlwind of emotions for whose expression she didn’t even need alcohol.

Everyone was sad to see Clarke go and, despite knowing that she had friends who cared about her, she was still struck by how much they loved her. When they all first met, reaching the numbers they had now, she thought it would be one of those close-proximity friendships, where they hung out because there was no one else. But she was wrong, and thank God for that, because Monty and Jasper hugged the ever living fuck out of her, and she could have sworn she’d seen Miller’s eyes glistening. They’d make it without her, even if she was the binding tissue that kept them all together for a very long time, but she wasn’t sure if she’d make it without them.

“Promise to call?” Monty asked her.

“Trust me, you won’t be able to get rid of me.”

She promised the same to everyone because she knew she could fulfill it. They were her best friends for such a long time and they were so much more than just a close-proximity friendship that would dissolve when distance is added to the equation.

They actually meant the world to her.

The next morning, Bellamy neatly placed all the boxes in his car and then sounded the horn while she was still busy packing. Or that’s what he thought, because Clarke was sitting on the edge of the tub in his bathroom, sobbing. There was enough for him to handle without seeing her like this and she would be fine, totally, but she just needed to let it all out. No matter how much she’d wanted to do this (and there wasn’t a shred of doubt in her that it’s the right choice) she was still leaving her friends behind and it felt like absolute and total shit, pain buried in her chest and slowly gnawing from within.

She climbed into the car after fixing her makeup and found Bellamy’s hand, squeezing it tight.

“I can do this, right?” she asked.

He shut down the engine and turned to face her with her hands in his. Even without the smile, there was a twinkle in his eye as he told her, “Princess, you can do everything.”

Never the one to seek someone else’s approval, Clarke still felt good after hearing him confirm that yes, she could do this and everything would be brilliant. It felt easier, knowing that someone believes in you. And Clarke had so many people who believed in her that it was hard to even think of anything else but success.

 

* * *

 

 

 Carrying brown cardboard boxes made Clarke feel like she was a freshman again. It seemed exactly the same like when she’d come to Ark College, except now Bellamy was helping her carry them and she wasn’t a wide-eyed, frightened freshman who had no one else to help her except for the two friendly U-Haul workers. She wasn’t alone anymore and just that made her feel a lot better as she ascended the staircase to the apartment she would be sharing with her new roommates, Anya and Monroe.

Anya was intimidating. Gorgeous and obviously talented (if her art displayed on the walls was any measure), but intimidating. Monroe seemed friendlier, instantly wrapping her in a hug despite the two of them only talked via Facebook. That made Clarke perk up and get enough courage to start talking to Anya while Bellamy carried the boxes in the room that would soon be Clarke’s. Anya was apparently a Studio Art major too, even if she didn’t look like one. She was all wild hair and witty remarks but apparently, that had only been a façade as she offered to help them get Clarke’s things out of Bellamy’s car and then proceeded to agree with Clarke about the absurdity of abstract art. It was a pretty unpopular opinion in artistic circles so Clarke was pleasantly surprised.

“So, how did you two meet?” Monroe asked, biting into a sandwich when they were all seated around the kitchen table.

Both Clarke and Bellamy flinched at the question, even though it would be a completely normal one had their circumstances been any different. They exchanged a brief glance, and then Bellamy raised his left shoulder in a half-shrug, so Clarke cleared her throat, trying to get herself ready for a possibly awkward reaction.

“I was actually taking his Ancient European Civilizations class.”

Monroe froze half-way biting into her sandwich and widened her eyes. Clarke could feel Bellamy tensing up next to her and she braced herself for impact.

“You teach Ancient European Civilizations?” Monroe practically shouted, a smile spreading on her freckled face. “That’s so cool, man!”

Clarke was _so_ relieved.

“Clarke tells me I’m a nerd,” Bellamy stuck his tongue out. “It’s nice to see some appreciation, thanks.”

“And also, thanks for not being weirded out,” Clarke added, patting Bellamy’s shoulder in consolation for the fact he is a nerd. No matter what Monroe says.

“Please tell me you didn’t think we’d mind,” Anya joined the conversation, eyebrows raised. “Like, you fell in love with your teacher, so what? He’s not eighty.”

Clarke was astounded at the sudden friendliness she saw in Anya’s cool demeanor as the latter waved her hand dismissively and rolled her eyes at the blonde. She could totally see them being friends.

Later on, she makes sure they’re fine with Bellamy sleeping over even if he insists on checking into a hotel, but they tell them they don’t mind at all. If they keep it down, which is exactly what they plan to do after an eight hour long drive. It’d be a suicide to drive back, and he doesn’t have classes the following day.

They sit in Clarke’s room, unpacking her things and Bellamy turns to her, a small box in his hand and a radiant smile on his face. When he’s really happy, for whatever reason, he has _that_ smile – all teeth, dimples and completely unabashed euphoria written all over his freckled face. It’s absolutely addictive and Clarke doesn’t remember seeing anyone who didn’t smile back at him when he flashed that grin.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a gift.”

She looks up at him with playful suspicion and then opens it.

It’s a necklace with a lightning-shaped pendant. Silver, because she doesn’t exactly like gold and he knows it.

She carefully gets it out of the box, placing it in her palm to look at it better. It’s beautiful and she feels like crying.

“It’s a lightning,” he starts, rubbing his neck with his left hand and averting his gaze, suddenly shy, “because, you know, that Zeus thing and he’s the god of-“

“Thunder and lightning, I know,” she smiles and steps a little bit closer to him, “Help me put it on.”

His fingers are gentle and careful as he places it around her neck, her hand keeping it in place just below her collarbone. She has no intention of taking it off, ever.

When it’s in its place, she turns to face him and takes it all in. The feeling of being the new kid, again, the anxiety slowly perishing from her thoughts, his fingers on her neck, cardboard boxes and sleeping in his car on the way over.

Falling in love with Bellamy Blake feels like a miracle, she knows. It’s not that she’s prayed for one, because she didn’t. Her life was good, but now it’s better. It’s better with him next to her, with deep conversations at 3 am when she can’t fall asleep and he wants to help, but in a very non-pushy way. Over time, he’d told her about himself, about Octavia, about Aurora, their mother. About the father he never had, never needed. The jobs he did to support himself through college and take care of Octavia. About looking for a reason to fight because he was angry and didn’t know what to do with all of that rage and sadness when his mother died. Finally, she finds out what that scar on his lip is.

When he talks to her about it, because she wants to know more, more than what he’d already told her when they couldn’t hold hands and sleep together and kiss each other, he’s reluctant. Doesn’t want to bother her, he says. And she can see the overwhelming sadness in his eyes that shows up when he thinks she isn’t looking. But she is, he’s always in the corner of her eye, even if he’s miles away. 

She can’t sleep and he talks to her about his life for a while. There’s always something new and whenever she stumbles across a small detail, like the red cap he wouldn’t take off when he was twelve and in love with a sun-freckled girl in his neighborhood, she feels like she’s found treasure. All of his life may have influenced his decisions and it may have altered him in different ways, but when he tells her about something so small compared to all the big things that have happened to him, she knows that that’s what Bellamy is. He isn’t only bloody knuckles and sleeping in a car so he’d see Octavia and anger, but she knows he thinks that’s what he is. Because all he can see is a struggle to stay human through all of the tough choices he’s had to make.

But she can see other things. She sees him with Octavia, the way he looks at her when she laughs, like he can’t believe what a wonderful person she’s grown to become, and he never takes it for granted when she throws herself into his arms, little sister who needs her big brother. She sees kindness in asking her whether she’s eaten enough, in draping a blanket over her shoulders when she passes out on the couch. She sees passion, too, when he talks about the things he loves (there are three of them: Octavia, Clarke and history), completely unguarded. She doesn’t ask him to lower his defenses when she’s with him, but he still does – never asking for anything in return.

She’s standing in front of him, and he’s smiling – sometimes, she wishes she could just give the world to him. There, Atlas, you’ve held the weight of the Earth on your shoulders long enough. Now is the time for you to reap the fruits of your labor.

But she can’t rip the Earth from its place in the universe and hand it to him, so she does the next best thing – she kisses him. And his fingers are the ghost of good memories on her body, and his lips the first drop of rain after a very long summer.

This boy fought long enough to stay human and life only gave him punches in return. And yet, when Bellamy Blake loves her, it feels like he’d never done anything else.

 

* * *

 

After a while, Clarke gets used to her new living arrangements. There’s an ever-present aching in her chest when Raven or Bellamy pop up in her mind when she notices something they’d be interested in, but she finds that texting them about it relieves her. So it’s better than nothing and soon enough, she stops dwelling on all the ways she could be miserable without her friends by her side and instead, chooses to enjoy herself.

Monroe and Anya are extremely helpful, making sure Clarke is introduced to everyone she might like and that there aren’t any awkward silences. Well, with Anya there are always silences but that might just be because of her resting bitch-face, something Clarke has too, so Monroe likes to tease them about scaring people off.

“What? We are fucking lovely!” Anya shouts one evening when confronted, and Clarke scrambles up her face to look like she’s hurt. Except she isn’t because no one could possibly be offended by Monroe’s mild-mannered words.

They’re sitting in a coffee shop Anya and Monroe had been frequenting since their freshman year, and it’s a nice place, very hipster-y but they make awesome coffee that helps when Clarke falls behind with her work. It actually has caffeine, go figure – much better than the generic Starbucks one she’d used to drink in Boston.

“Not saying you aren’t,” Monroe begins, playfully, “it’s just that people think you two are some revenge goddesses who’ll bring down the fury on their sorry asses.”

Clarke and Anya exchange looks and settle on being flattered.

“Their asses should be sorry.”

When they’re not procrastinating in their coffee shop, Tree Crew (“Our coffee is one hundred per cent organic,” the owner, Indra, tells Clarke), they’re usually holed up in their apartment. Monroe is an anthropology major so the most classwork she does is studying and ranting about evolution and various cultural influences on societal norms, but Anya and Clarke are studio art majors who actually have to be inspired in order to get a grade.

It’s slightly harder than Clarke had thought, and she often calls Bellamy, bitching about how her assignment is due in two days and the only thing she can think of is handing in a blank piece of paper, calling it modern art.

“What did we say, Genghis?” Bellamy’s voice is suddenly strict over the phone.

“Clarke, it’s – my name is Clarke.”

“You’re Genghis Kan, not Genghis Kan’t.”

Sometimes that’s enough to make her double over in laughter and then ask what he is up to. Sure, Bellamy Blake is a total nerd, something she keeps saying and yet it holds no truth because she loves that about him, but it helps to laugh when she’s drunk three energy drinks, five cups of coffee and her hands are shaking but it isn’t helping.

When nothing else helps, Anya and Clarke get together in the living room and just get drunk. Clarke thinks she’s found her soul mate in the restless brunette with cheekbones so sharp they could cut, because Anya likes vodka just as much as Clarke does.

“You know what they say, when in doubt – vodka.”

“Yeah, no, I’m pretty sure you two are alcoholics.”

There’s a lot of playful bickering between them, but they like one another and no one has any particularly annoying habits. Sure, Clarke leaves the toothpaste uncapped and Monroe forgets to take out the trash when it’s her turn, but it’s nothing that’d leave significant traces on their relationship.

By the time October is almost over, Clarke managed to produce three pieces of art she’s not so satisfied with to turn in for a grade and on the morning of Halloween, she’s packing her duffle bag while Anya sleeps on her bed, all long legs and hair splayed on the covers.

She’s going back home, except she has two homes now, because Raven and Wick are throwing a party in Tondc and she has to attend it. Clarke didn’t even have any choice in the matter so she did her best to come up with a broke artist costume (“That’s not a costume if that’s who you are 24/7,” Raven teases) in order to participate.

It’s a long drive to Boston, exactly four hundred and forty miles of listening to Monster Mash and assorted Raven-approved-pumping-up-for-the-awesomest-Halloween-party-ever music, but she can’t help smiling.

Whenever she comes back home, which is usually every other weekend, there’s a whole ‘welcome home’ gathering, usually at Raven’s (Clarke doesn’t think of that apartment as theirs anymore, it’s Raven’s now, judging by all the scrap metal that’s now occupying Clarke’s former room) and they get buzzed on beers and play video games until a fight breaks out because there are notorious cheaters hidden among them.

That Halloween, though, the first thing Clarke sees is Bellamy and she has to take a deep breath because she’s torn between laughing and being really horny.

He’s standing on his front porch in a Roman legionnaire costume, armor covering his chest and a skirt barely reaching to his knees.

“Oh God,” Clarke chuckles, eyes spread wide in amazement.

He’s still standing there, arms crossed at his chest and smirking.

“Admit it, you want my body.”

“Nah,” she takes a step closer and wraps her arms around his waist. “I want your army.”

They are late to the party and everyone just smirks and chuckles so fucking much after Raven shouts from across the room at Clarke, asking her who’s the real nerd here between the two of them, if Clarke can’t even help it but to jump Bellamy whenever something vaguely historical is going on.

She has a problem, she’s totally aware of it, and by the time Bellamy’s gone off to talk to Lincoln about something and Clarke is comfortably seated by the bar in Octavia’s company, she’s trying really hard not to think about it.

“So, how are things between you two?” Octavia asks, wiping a glass and then pouring vodka into it, only to slide it at Clarke. She’s supposed to be a Catwoman of some sort, and it’s a really good look on her, Clarke has to admit. The Blake siblings are just unnaturally attractive, it isn’t fair.

“Great,” Clarke smiles, turning on her stool to face Octavia. “You and Lincoln?”

The brunette stops for a second, frowning at the impeccably clean bar she suddenly feels the need to scrub, and then throws away the rag and looks at Clarke.

“He’s asked me to marry him.”

“Jesus Christ, Octavia, that’s great! Congratulations!” Clarke exclaims before she’s noticed Octavia’s puzzled look. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing, not really,” she pours herself a shot of whiskey and downs it in one swift move before continuing. “Only, Lincoln’s got a huge family and there’s no one on my side except for Bellamy.”

“That’s what’s bothering you?” Clarke asks, shocked at the simplicity. The first thing she thought Octavia would say is something like ‘I’m too young’ or ‘I don’t love him’ but then she realizes how stupid that is.

“Well, yeah. What else? I love him.”

“Oh, Octavia, it won’t be only Bellamy. Look, you’ve got us,” Clarke gestures towards where her friends are spasming on the dance floor, adamant in calling it dancing. “We’re like your slightly dysfunctional family. But family nevertheless.”

And Octavia smiles, leaving Clarke dazed because she has Bellamy’s smile, the dimples, eyes lighting up like a Christmas tree and unconsciously attracting people into her orbit.

The two of them join Raven on the dance floor when Lincoln returns to man the bar, confused Bellamy in tow. Clarke winks at him but then Raven’s got a hold of her and she’s spinning her so wildly, everyone is screeching and laughing, music turned all the way up. It’s just like the night she’d first seen Bellamy as Bellamy, not as Blake, months ago and now she isn’t drunk but everything is equally wonderful and she gives in to the feeling.

When they’re seated around a table in the booth forever bearing their names, Clarke watches Raven and Wick, sitting across from her and Bellamy, and smiles when she realizes how much the two of them laugh. Raven smiles, but it’s snarky most of the time, it isn’t a full smile, but with Wick it’s like it comes easy. He makes her laugh, he makes her happy. Raven did admit that she’s in love with the scruffy engineering student, but it isn’t until that night that Clarke realizes just how much. And after Finn, someone who’d give the world for her is exactly what Raven needs.

Monty and Miller are there too and Clarke found out they’re dating, even if they’re trying to keep it on the down low, for whatever reason. Miller smiles more, Monty isn’t as flustered as before and she catches them kissing in the back alley when she drags Bellamy there to do the same (and so much more).

It’s wild and ecstatic and Clarke feels like twenty two, senior year of college and a handsome guy hanging onto her every word. Except that he loves her so it makes the drunken kissing so much better when they’ve steered clear of all people and she has him pinned to the wall.

Music is booming from inside Tondc and maybe she could recognize the lyrics if it wasn’t for Bellamy touching her, as soft as she is hard on his mouth, biting and sucking, leaving blooming purple spots on his neck.

“My students might tease me, Princess,” he tries to act angry but she growls, sucking into his neck again and admiring the masterpiece that is as good as oil on canvas.

“Let them know you are mine.”

And like it’s the only thing he’d needed to hear, his eyes go dark and he returns the kiss, growled on her lips, just as fierce as she did. She wants him so bad because he is hers and no one else can have him. It’s dark enough for no one to see them but even then, she might not care because this is something she’d wanted to do since she’d bought that drink for him on that dreadful Friday.

His armor clanks against the brick wall when he flips them and then she’s scraping for every little piece of skin she can find, hot under her touch.

Bellamy sinks to his knees, unbuttoning her paint-stained jeans but she taps his shoulders, cool metal against her warm fingertips and she drags him back up, pressing her lips against his.

“No, no.”

It’s like a pained whisper and he stares at her in confusion but then his lips are imprinting wet kisses on her neck and the stars she sees from hitting the wall mean nothing to her. She’s got her shining one right in front of her.

His fingers are quick and skilled with her jeans buttons and then she’s raising his skirt, both of them laughing exhaustedly at how funny that is, but her back is scraping the wall again and this is not enough, his eyes can be darker because she’d seen them darker the first time she’d returned home from Europe, so she leans her head on his shoulder to whisper.

“Bellamy,” his name is hot and soft even in her ragged voice and she desperately runs her fingers through his curls, stopping to grip the nape of his neck. “If you’re not inside me in a moment, I’ll die.”

His hands are holding her up and he smashes his mouth onto hers as he pushes himself in, everything turning into one because she’s raking her nails down his back and begging for him to go faster because there are stars and there are constellations and there is nothing except a soft hum in her mind as he does what he’s asked to and slams into her harder.

The alley is filled with their moans and electronic music coming from the bar and she feels like she is twenty two, desperate and fervent and completely on the verge of falling down.

She is twenty two and she would be on the verge of falling down if it weren’t for his hands holding her in place as he whispers something unintelligible in her ear, something she can’t hear because she’s busy feeling everything so strongly.

It doesn’t take them long to come together, now that they’ve found their rhythm, and it never takes them long when it isn’t their intention. When it’s like this, eyes scanning for the first place they won’t be found in, it’s so much desire already that time seems irrelevant. Sometimes it’s enough for him to touch a piece of her exposed skin to send her over the edge.

“Jesus, Clarke,” he laughs, his forehead leaned on hers.

“Don’t laugh,” she scolds him but there’s no heat to it; all of it is in her body. “I’ve been meaning to do this from the night I saw you sitting there.”

He looks at her incredulously and she can’t help but to egg him on with a smirk on her face.

“I would’ve fucked you on the counter if you’d said yes.”

Clarke sees the change in his face, shock painting it a deep red. He’s back to what he always was, so shy she just wants to whisper dirty things into his ear. It’s too tempting to pass out on.

But then he’s back again, head raised and his eyes locking hers.

“I woke up wanting to kiss you every single morning after that.”

They don’t leave the alley until it’s nearly dawn and then they take the same walk they took the night it all started, a little bashful, a little brazen, but absolutely fucking in love.

 

* * *

 

The next morning is a little fuzzy, soft around the edges as they try to wake up. It’s playful teasing, rumpled covers on their bed and plans for building a fort out of blankets. The last night isn’t a blur, so they laugh about it, talking about how they even started all of this, first thoughts, first moments, that sort of thing that leaves Clarke feeling all warm inside.

At one point, Bellamy flinches and then stares ahead, as though he’d only remembered something important.

“Oh, yeah, Octavia and Lincoln are getting married,” he says, a dazed look on his face.

“I know,” Clarke smiles. “Octavia told me. Frankly, I thought they’d just elope to Vegas and get married. They’re that sort of couple, they know they want to be together so what’s the point in proposing?”

“Aren’t all couples like that? I mean, you’re with someone and you want to be with them for the rest of your life, so it feels like it’s already given,” Bellamy muses. “For example, I’d marry you any day.”

He says it with a deadpan expression but it seems like he’s realized what he’d said soon enough so he looks down at her, warily watching if she’s weirded out.

But she isn’t. God, she isn’t. All she can do is smile like a total goof and adjust herself in his arms to get a better look at him.

“You’d marry me?”

“I’d love to marry you,” he says softly when it’s obvious that the mention of marriage doesn’t freak her out.

It probably should, she figures, but it doesn’t. Marriage is the last of her priorities but only because she loves him, knows he loves her, and that sort of seems like a really nice afterthought.

“We shouldn’t steal Lincoln and Octavia’s thunder, though, so don’t propose yet,” she adds.

“Yeah, okay.”

And with that, they’re back to laughing and completely denying they are adults. Which is good, because Bellamy Blake is apparently an expert fort-builder, and she would be lying if she said she didn’t consider that to be another good reason to marry him.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters, and I definitely promise a happy ending. I can't say I haven't thought about making them miserable and unhappy, but I just don't have it in me. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading and thank you for the amazing comments! :)


	4. All I Want for Christmas Is You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on a prompt: " Either first Christmas apart (as in like after Clarke goes to Washington) or first birthday together (reunited)" - First Christmas apart it is!
> 
> When Clarke Griffin thought about all the things that could go wrong when she moved to Washington, knowing full well that her boyfriend and her friends would stay in Boston, she usually imagined being up to her eyeballs in urgent classwork, meaning she would have to postpone going home for the weekend.   
> But apparently, all it takes to screw up your Christmas plans is a snowstorm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said I was going to do two more chapters but then, just writing this, I felt like Christmas is a wonderful time for miracles and cheesy endings. 
> 
> This one goes out to everyone who read this, liked this, and particularly to the lovely people who left wonderful comments that left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. Thank you because, without you guys, I probably wouldn't have been able to do anything, and much less finish this.
> 
> So, to everyone who was lovely, to everyone who'd been reading this, I hope you like it! :)

When Clarke Griffin thought about all the things that could go wrong when she moved to Washington, knowing full well that her boyfriend and her friends would stay in Boston, she usually imagined being up to her eyeballs in urgent classwork, meaning she would have to postpone going home for the weekend.

But apparently, all it takes to screw up your Christmas plans is a snowstorm.

At first, it looked pretty. Everyone loves a white Christmas, thick layers of snow coating the streets and people starting up snowball fights for the sheer joy of it. And it looks well with fairy lights and decorations that have been up since the end of November. It’s just that everyone loves snow, and Clarke does too – she’s no stranger to catching snowflakes with her tongue and curling up under a blanket with a good book and hot chocolate.

So when the snow started falling on December 22nd, she didn’t actually think it would evolve into a full-blown snowstorm that made her hate the day she decided to leave for Boston in the morning of Christmas Eve. There was classwork, sure, but it wasn’t that urgent – it could wait for when she’s back, stuffed with Octavia and Bellamy’s cooking and a bit woozy from drinking too much of Monty’s homemade liquor (rat poison, practically, but cherry flavored).

But no, Clarke prided herself on being a reasonable college senior and that’s why she had her head stuck in a contemporary art theory book when a news anchor announced that all airports would be closed because of the snowstorm of the century. Funnily enough, she’d already bought the ticket. Her car had broken down and so it was still in the shop, as she didn’t exactly expect she’d need to use it.  

“And we urge everyone to stay put wherever they are, as train and bus routes are being modified due to the accident that had happened earlier this morning.”

Clarke could probably kill the news anchor with her stare alone. It still didn’t change the fact that, as far as it seemed, she wouldn’t be making it to Boston in time for Christmas dinner. And it was supposed to be a great one, Bellamy even volunteered to host it at his place for absolutely everyone. She was planning on eating way too much turkey and falling asleep in front of the fireplace. She loved his fucking fireplace.

In the next ten minutes, she’d already called the airport (“Sorry, ma’am, but all flights are cancelled.”), the train station (“Call back in three hours, but the accident was on the route to Boston so don’t hold your hopes up.”) and the bus station (“There isn’t a driver who’d drive through this snowstorm.”) – every single one giving her the same answer she didn’t want to hear – there’s no fucking way she’d make it and she’d better start getting supplies in case it gets worse.

So she fell back on her couch, staring at the ceiling of the apartment she’s been sharing with Anya and Monroe, both of them already home for the holidays. They didn’t even bother to put up a Christmas tree, knowing Clarke would be going home, too. Suddenly, it didn’t feel like Christmas anymore.

Her phone rang, barely distinguishable from the holiday ads coming from her TV because she’d changed her tune to Jingle Bells, and she picked it up.

“Clarke? Where are you?”

Of course it was Bellamy. And of course she’d have to tell him she wouldn’t be making it home for their first Christmas together. And first Christmas apart, apparently.

“Um, still in Washington. Have you seen the news?”

“Yeah,” he sounded crestfallen and she hated herself for trying to be organized.

“I called the airport and my flight is cancelled. Trains and buses aren’t driving, and my car is in the shop so-“she trailed off, unable to bring herself to say it.

“So you won’t be making it.”

“I’m sorry,” she pressed out, biting into her thumb and staring at the TV like she’d been half-expecting someone to announce that flights are back on.

“It’s not your fault, Princess,” he chuckled but she knew he wasn’t smiling. “Look, I’ll call you later, I need to tell Octavia and Raven. They’re cooking and – well, call the fire brigade, alright? I’ll call you and we’ll figure something out.”

Clarke managed to smile just a little and then he ended the call. Because of course Raven would try to cook and it’s probably going to turn out like the worst dish ever but Clarke still wanted to be there to tell her just how bad it was. And she wanted to be with Bellamy, especially as they really needed to talk, and it was that sort of serious talk every couple had to have at least once – where do we go from here?

Because she’d been offered a job. In New York. And she was pretty sure Abby had something to do with it, mostly because she’d told Clarke that she would probably receive a job offer and, not being able to stay away from Bellamy for an extended period of time, refuse it. All part of the conversation which ended with Clarke shouting at her in the middle of the. The offer just had her mom’s name written all over it, a graphic design firm that saw some of her pieces in an exhibit funded by Clarke’s college and wanted to recruit her. That sort of shit didn’t happen to people whose mom wasn’t Abby Griffin.

But the offer was good.

It also meant living apart from Bellamy because he had a job, a great and a stable one as a teacher on Clarke’s former university, Ark College. She couldn’t just expect him to drop it.

It was shit, basically, and she needed to talk to someone about it. Anya and Monroe were supportive, pushing her in the right direction for her career but then again, she needed to hear Bellamy on this one. Raven, too. That sort of people that have already helped her ditch studying for pre-med and focus on art, the only thing she’s ever wanted to do.

But it would have to wait, Clarke figured as she went through her fridge. There was enough pasta to last her for the next few days but God, she’d wanted turkey and cake and her family.

Her stupid, annoying, ridiculous and shameful family.

She fished out a Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough-flavored ice cream and settled in front of the couch just as another rerun of Home Alone started.

What a merry Christmas Clarke Griffin would have.

 

* * *

 

“Blake, are you out of your fucking mind?”

Raven Reyes shouting at Bellamy Blake made no difference in the cacophony that was now his home. Packed with people who came hours early because they wanted to spread the holiday cheer and surprise Clarke when she finally arrives, they kept rushing to and fro, turning his once silent and comfortable abode into something that reminded him of a holiday carnival.

Not that he minded. Because Miller’s face when Jasper blew a handful of confetti at him was priceless. And Lincoln wearing a Santa had was such a rare occurrence that it demanded to be included in the Blake family legacy and passed on to new generations.

And for all of those reasons, Bellamy approached Raven with the idea of driving to Washington to get Clarke. Because she had to be here to see this.

It wasn’t a particularly bad idea, although Raven begged to differ.

“Octavia, tell your brother,” Raven rolled her eyes and turned to the stove as Octavia approached Bellamy with hands on her hips and looking frightening despite her frilly pink ‘Kiss the cook’ apron.

For someone who’d practically brought Octavia up, Bellamy was sort of afraid of her.

“Bell, what the hell is wrong with you?”

He wanted Clarke to be there.

He wanted Clarke to be with him.

He wanted Clarke to be with her _family_.

“I’m not letting Clarke spend Christmas in a place that doesn’t even have a Christmas tree, O,” he reasoned, running his fingers through his hair while thinking of the best way to avoid the accident site and make it to Washington.

Also, the Christmas tree argument was a good one because Octavia and Bellamy did have a pretty shitty childhood, even before their mom died, but when they had a decked Christmas tree they could fall asleep in front of – they knew they would be okay. It meant a whole lot. Perhaps it meant as much to Clarke.

“Alright,” Octavia huffed and then dragged Lincoln over. “Bell’s going to get Clarke. Yeah, I know, don’t bother. Just get him our Rover keys, I don’t want him risking it in his crappy car.”

Lincoln shrugged, the hat still on top of his head, clashing with the idea people got about him, that he was some sort of a thug, and handed Bellamy the keys to the Land Rover they kept for hunting trips or whatever the hell they did for adrenaline.

Lincoln and Octavia were weird, but they sort of fit together and he loved them.

“Merry Christmas,” Bellamy grinned.

“Yeah, and Bell? You didn’t tell her about what happened on Friday?”

“No, but I intend to.”

Octavia raised an eyebrow as though she would protest but then she shrugged and turned away on her heel, leaving to help Raven with cookies that smelled like death, not Christmas.

What happened on Friday was that he got a deal for his book and he sort of rushed into Abby Griffin’s office, slamming his resignation letter on her desk, and proclaimed his undying love for her daughter. She didn’t look as pissed off as he thought she would, from what Clarke had told him. She only wished him a merry Christmas.

So there he was, a book deal – well, a book series deal, and a velvet box in his right pocket, as he turned the ignition on and slowly drove out of the driveway. Lights from his house shone on the whole street and someone had thought to play Christmas songs.

The only thing missing for it to be the perfect Christmas was Clarke.

And dear God, Clarke Griffin was something completely different. He couldn’t tell exactly why he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, except that it had something to do with the way she laughed, fought for what she loved and when she loved, she did it with her whole heart. There were stars in her eyes every time he’d set his eyes on her and the somersaults his heart did whenever she held his hand had meant everything.

Bellamy Blake is twenty seven years old and he loves her like she is his first crush. In many ways, she is. The first one that mattered because you have to fall in love with the girl who frowns when she’s in deep thought and then laughs like none of it matters when you kiss her. You have to fall in love with the girl who knows she can’t have you but still wants you to be her friend. You have to fall in love with her because there are galaxies lying in the palm of her hand and you don’t even want to swallow them whole; you just want to admire the miracle.

There is something new every day, something he wishes he could keep in a safe place and remember it for the rest of his life. And it isn’t even anything particularly newsworthy, it’s just Clarke. Clarke who drags her butt in front of her laptop to Skype him while she’s doing homework and he’s grading papers, and they laugh, stubborn but not stubborn enough not to admit how much they miss each other.

It’s not just one thing, not just one thing that made him place that box in the glove compartment, but a whole myriad of them. You can never tell why you love someone, it’s enough that you just know that you do.

It’s enough for them.

And so he keeps his eyes on the road, careful not to skid through the snow, and despite the gloomy, dreary day with grey skies, he finds it in himself to smile.

 

* * *

 

Clarke is wearing a ratty pair of sweatpants, an old Ark College hoodie and it doesn’t feel like Christmas at all.

When she was a kid, ten or so, her dad would take her to the Christmas fair to pick out the best tree in the whole lot. Well, the trees she’d usually pick were ugly, bare branches and thin trunks, and every time her father would try to reason with her Clarke would say that someone needs to love these too. And then she’d start crying so they usually came home with the tree she picked, despite it not being aesthetically pleasing. It didn’t fit in with their home but neither of her parents protested, all they could muster was an eye roll and “That’s Clarke for you”. And that was Clarke because every time she saw that scrappy tree no one would want to pick, she thought it was her personal mission to give it a home, even just for one Christmas.

Or she would cry because even ugly trees needed to be decorated like they were the prettiest ones there were. Because she is Clarke Griffin and she was always rooting for the underdogs.

But there isn’t a tree now, in the small apartment, illuminated only by the weak light of the sunset filtering through windows and the TV she left on a channel showing A Wonderful Life. If she’s going to cry, she’s at least going to keep some dignity and pretend like it’s because of the sad storyline.

Bellamy hasn’t called, either, and she keeps stealing nervous glances at her phone but it doesn’t ring no matter how hard she hopes it would. She takes a shower and sets her phone on silent mode, hoping that’s going to make it ring by some strange accident, but when she returns, her hair wrapped in a towel, there’s not a single call she’d missed.

So she does what she does best – mopes and stares at the pile of gifts she’d bought. They look very judgy so she tells them to fuck off and throws a blanket over her head.

Her mom didn’t call either and it must be one of those days when no one’s picking up their phone. Still, the universe could’ve picked some other day than Christmas Eve for that to happen.

 And then, just as she contemplates on getting drunk – even though it’s Christmas, her phone rings and she scrambles under the blanket to reach it. She knows it’s Bellamy even before she’s read his name.

“Bellamy!”

“What’s up, Princess? Happy to hear from me?” he teases and she rolls her eyes, sinking deeper into the couch.

“Yeah, everyone’s sort of ignoring me and this is the worst Christmas ever.”

“How about you take a look out your window?”

No fucking _way_.

But she still runs up to her window, phone pressed to her ear and smiles as soon as she takes a peek.

He’s standing under the lamppost and smiling at her. Bellamy Blake is standing in the snow reaching up to his knees and smiling at her.

“Better?”

She doesn’t reply, just throws the phone on the couch and runs out the door.

 

* * *

 

 

Bellamy sees her running out the door, and she just stops there, breath catching in her throat and tears streaming down her cheeks. She is so pink and so wonderful, standing there and clutching the handle like it’s a lifeboat on a river waiting to take her away if she pries her fingertips from it.

She is so tiny in the middle of all that snow and he spreads his arms wide, waiting for the moment she leans her head on his chest and breathes. Just that. Just to hear her breathe. And he knows he’s too far gone, because looking at that girl, with tears gleaming in her eyes as she runs across the distance separating them, always the distance – she runs to him, and then it’s _home_ just feeling her heartbeat near his.

“You’re here.”

It’s barely a whisper, it’s a gasp she lets him hear, hands grabbing his coat like she’s going to lose him the moment she looks up. And laughter shakes his body as he says that yes, yes he’s here and he’s never letting go of her again.

Because what is driving through a snowstorm compared to the feeling of being next to Clarke Griffin, his skin hot under his touch even if the air is cold and everything in the world is cold, except her body next to his?

He doesn’t want to let go, but she does, and it feels like she has to rip herself from him, every step she takes back setting ache in his bones.

“I need to tell you something.”

And he looks up, despite himself, despite his stomach twisting because there is so much that can go wrong and this world never gives you happiness if it doesn’t want to take something from you in return.

God, haven’t they fought against it for too long?

“I got a job offer. In New York.”

She doesn’t understand why he picks her up and spins her in his arms, imprinting kisses on her cheeks and lips, and temple.

“Congratulations, Princess,” he whispers into her ear as his lips trace her jaw and the small of her back he’s holding warms up. “Because I quit on Friday, I got a book deal, and I’d follow you to the end of the world. And back.”

And there it goes. His body thrumming like a live wire, uncontained energy he feels rushing out of his fingertips as she smiles in his arms and he traces her cold cheeks, pressing her closer. She’s kissing him again, a little careful, soft like it’s only a ghost of Clarke and he knows she’s holding herself back, like she always does when she can’t believe that a good thing can happen.

He knows what it’s like to stare in suspicion when someone tells you that there are no conditions for happiness.

And as he sinks to his knees, into the cold snow, but invincible because of the girl that’s looking at him, raw and soft around the edges under the pale light but perfect, God, always perfect, she is confused and he can read it on her face. It’s the unguarded Clarke. Clarke that laughs with her throat to the stars, Clarke that smiles like she’d managed to forget everything, even just for a minute, Clarke that tells him how much she loves him – it’s Clarke that’s standing with her feet buried in the snow, freezing to death, and looking at him like she can’t understand what he’s doing.

And he wants to take it all in, with his fingers wrapped around the precious box in his coat pocket. Take in the snow, enveloping them in silence, like they’re the two only people on Earth and the only thing they can do is love each other. Take in the snowflakes brushed into her hair, and the stars in her eyes she doesn’t even see. God, how is someone the whole universe without even realizing it?

He takes it in and then takes the lid off the box. His heart is beating rapidly against his chest, a victory march, struggling inside like it wants to break free.

_Me, too._

If he could keep the moment she realized, so sudden in her eyes and so quick on her cheeks, the corners of her lips turning upward and mouth parting in surprise, he would.

“Princess, I know we never do things the right way. But I love _our_ way. And I love you, Clarke, I love you so much,” there’s something in the back of his throat and then he knows what it is, and he laughs because he hasn’t cried in such a long time but this, this feels right. “So, what do you say? Want to do it our way again and marry me?”

He doesn’t know if she says yes, all is lost in her legs wrapping around his waist and her palms on his cheeks, and she stares at him like he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to her. Her lips are brushing against his and then she’s whispering it, and he feels it in his mouth. Yes, yes, _yes_.

Nothing exists anymore, not even the snow and the cold and her shivering body under his arms, because something explodes in him and it’s happiness and sadness and craving and too much love for his body to hold, but she’s smiling and crying and to hell with everything, he’s been lost for words ever since she’d told him that she loved him.

He doesn’t even remember how they make it home. It’s all a blur of smiles, singing along to the songs playing on the radio at the top of their lungs and her body next to his, curled up on the passenger seat with her hand always near him so he can bring it to his mouth and kiss her knuckles. They nearly glow in the dark, glistening eyes and sparkling teeth because real happiness, he realizes, doesn’t let you stop smiling.

And her voice is so soft when she turns to him just after midnight, messy blonde hair and a sweater three sizes too big, the most beautiful thing in the whole world.

“Merry Christmas, Bell.”

“Merry Christmas, Clarke.”

 

* * *

 

They came back home in the crack of the dawn to find everyone sleeping. The radio was still playing Christmas songs, Mariah Carey’s voice saying all she wanted for Christmas was them, and Clarke felt her heart swelling with affection when she saw Raven curled up under the Christmas tree, the most beautiful tree she’d ever seen in her life. It stood in the middle of the living room, illuminating it with golden and red glimmers.

She stole a glance in Bellamy’s direction, happy to see him already looking at her with a smile so big it might have overshadowed the whole beauty of a fully decorated house, and she whispered, “Thank you.”

He only squeezed her hand tighter and led her into the living room, careful not to step on Jasper and Maya who fell asleep holding hands and leaning on each other’s shoulders. Monty and Miller were intertwined on the couch, a blanket draped over them, and Octavia was sleeping in Lincoln’s lap in the armchair. Lincoln, who looked strong and tough, now seemed like a really friendly Christmas teddy bear, with red and white Santa hat on top of his head.

And they were all smiling.

“Took you a long time,” she heard someone whisper and then turned her head to the kitchen. Wick was standing in the doorway, a plate of cookies in his hand, and a goofy grin on his face.

“Well, to be fair, Bellamy did just propose.”

His eyes spread wide in amazement and somehow, those words managed to stir Raven from her sleep as she tiptoed to where they were standing, rubbing her eyes to chase away the sleepiness.

“What just happened?”

Clarke was hugging her before the brunette could even realize what was going on, but she returned the hug. She still smelled like car oil and burned cooking but Clarke buried her head into her hair, so very thankful for her best friend.

“Merry Christmas, Raven,” she pressed out and then stepped away a bit, to show Raven her left hand, where a silver band with a sapphire stone glistened. It was small and it was Bellamy’s and it was perfect. She couldn’t stop staring at it when they were driving over, so much he teased her, but there was just something so natural about the way it fit, and she was so in love.

“Jesus Christ, Clarke!” Raven exclaimed, but then she erupted into full squealing as she waved her hands about and finally managed to get a hold of both Clarke and Bellamy and squeeze them tight to her.

This woke up everyone else and it took them a while to realize what’s going on, but then they were so happy. Both Christmas and engagement congratulations erupted, their voices echoing out in the street, and it wasn’t before ten in the morning that they all finally managed to arrange themselves around the tree and open the presents.

Even Octavia cried, which is really something.

And as Clarke dozed off on the couch, in a very smiling Bellamy’s arms and a glass of eggnog in her hand, she could still hear the giggles and the delighted squeals from everyone running through the room. Finally, she realized, home was never a place. Home isn’t measured in square meters and rooms. Home is measured in people who love you. And she’d found hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, folks! Thank you for reading, thank you for kudoing, thank you for commenting! This story is now over, but fret not, my Bellarke era has only just begun. ;)

**Author's Note:**

> I have all the thanks to give to my two wonderful friends, Sophia ([wittchingswriting](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wittchingswriting/pseuds/wittchingswriting)) and Mari. Sophia, thank you for squealing with me and thank you for the superb Minty fics. Mari, thank you for reading my trashy trash fics and loving me nevertheless.
> 
> Also, I have very little idea about how American college system works so excuse me if there are some administrative mistakes in the text you've just read. I hope you still liked it. :)
> 
> I can be found and sent prompts on my [tumblr](http://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com), or like, we can cry about Bellarke together.


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